🔍 Read the full analysis: The Story Of Work From Nearly Everyone Farming To AI on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
A November 3, 2026, article on ThorstenMeyerAI.com traces how farming’s share of U.S. work fell from an estimated 73.7% in 1800 to about 1.5% today, as tools, fertilizer and improved crops raised output. It argues that agriculture offers a historical example of major labor displacement, while stressing that the change took generations and that 928 million people still work in agriculture worldwide.
Thorsten Meyer’s November 3, 2026, article on ThorstenMeyerAI.com traces how farming went from employing most American workers to about 1.5% of the U.S. workforce, using the sector’s history to explore the effects of automation on work. The account links the change to successive advances in tools, fertilizer and crop breeding, while noting that 928 million people worldwide still work in agriculture, according to an International Labour Organization estimate for 2025.
Meyer cites economic historian Stanley Lebergott’s estimate, published by the U.S. Census Bureau, that 1.4 million of 1.9 million U.S. workers in 1800 were in agriculture, or 73.7%. The early figures are estimates rather than census counts, and the labour-force total includes about 530,000 enslaved people. Meyer notes that the 1810 estimate was higher still, making “about three in four” a more defensible summary than treating the 1800 figure as exact.
The article describes agricultural change as a sequence rather than a single technological break. A steel plough associated with John Deere’s 1837 work addressed soil sticking to earlier ploughs, while mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors came later. In the early 20th century, the Haber-Bosch process made synthetic ammonia fertilizer possible at industrial scale. From the 1960s, short-straw wheat varieties, paired with fertilizer and irrigation, helped raise yields.
Meyer cites Indian government figures showing wheat production rising from 12.3 million tonnes in 1964-65 to 26.4 million tonnes in 1971-72. The article also reports that the world’s cereal harvest grew 4.2-fold from 1961 while population grew 2.7-fold, and that U.S. farm output in 2023 was nearly three times its 1948 level with only a small rise in total inputs. Those figures are presented as evidence that fewer farm workers did not mean less food production.
What Farm Automation Shows
The historical record gives readers a concrete example of technology reshaping an entire sector’s workforce without eliminating the sector’s output. As farm productivity rose, fewer workers were needed to produce food, allowing labor to move into other parts of the economy. That is relevant to current debate about AI, but the comparison has limits: agriculture’s transformation unfolded over roughly two centuries in the United States, not in a single wave.
The remaining workforce also matters. The article’s 928 million agricultural workers estimate for 2025 is roughly one in four workers globally, with reported shares of 43% in India, about 1.5% in the United States and about 1% in Germany. The pace and consequences of further mechanization will vary across countries, and the figures do not establish how quickly new technologies will change employment.
Meyer’s suggestion that automation could make a sector “up to 90%” automated within a decade or a few decades is explicitly his thesis, not a measured forecast. The historical account supports discussion of possible change; it cannot by itself predict AI’s effects on particular jobs, wages or the creation of new work.
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From Muscle to Higher Yields
Meyer sets the agricultural story within a three-part picture of the economy: field, factory and office. Around 1800, much of the world’s food depended on human and animal labor, hand tools and weather. Since farms produced relatively little beyond what households consumed, a large share of the population had to work the land. The article says similar patterns appeared elsewhere: estimates put the primary sector at about 85% of Japan’s gainfully occupied population in 1872, while India’s 1951 census counted cultivators and agricultural laborers as 69.7% of workers.
The international comparisons are not all directly equivalent. Some are historical reconstructions, and the primary sector can include forestry and fishing as well as farming. For Germany, the article cites an official 1882 occupational census showing 43.4% of workers in agriculture and forestry, while warning that the count underrepresented women working on family farms. The data still show a broad shift, but they should not be read as perfectly comparable measures across countries and periods.
The article’s account of fertilizer centers on Fritz Haber’s 1908 patent for synthesizing ammonia from its elements and the subsequent development of industrial production. Its account of improved seeds focuses on short-straw wheat developed and spread during the Green Revolution. Together with machinery and irrigation, these developments helped raise output per worker; the article does not assign the entire increase to any one invention.
““Farming shows a whole sector can be emptied of human hands.””
— Thorsten Meyer, in the article’s thesis
Limits of the Historical Comparison
The article does not establish how many jobs AI will displace, which occupations will be affected, or whether new roles will offset losses. Its proposed 90% automation scenario is Meyer’s own thesis and is not accompanied in the supplied material by a forecast method or independent estimate.
Some historical employment shares are estimates or reconstructions, particularly for periods before comprehensive censuses. The article also draws on statistics from different countries, years and definitions of work. Its figures indicate long-term change, but do not make every country’s experience directly comparable. The number of agricultural workers worldwide is given as an ILO estimate for 2025; future employment and productivity outcomes are not stated.
The Series Turns to Machinery
Meyer identifies this article as Episode 2 of “Work After Work,” a series about how the economy is built. He says Episode 3 will cover mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors, continuing the account of agricultural change. The supplied material does not provide a publication date for that installment.
For the broader AI question, the next useful evidence will be measured changes in adoption, output and employment across specific industries. The farming history offers context, but readers will need current data to judge whether AI is producing comparable shifts and over what time frame.
Key Questions
What is the article’s main development?
It traces the historical decline in farming’s share of work and uses that change to frame discussion of automation and AI. It is a historical report, not an announcement of a new AI system or a measured labor forecast.
How many Americans worked in agriculture around 1800?
The article cites Stanley Lebergott’s estimate that 73.7% of the U.S. labor force worked in agriculture in 1800. The figure is an estimate, not a census count, and includes enslaved people in the labor-force total.
How many people still work in agriculture worldwide?
The article cites an ILO estimate of 928 million people in 2025, about one in four workers worldwide. It gives national shares of 43% in India, about 1.5% in the United States and about 1% in Germany.
Does the article prove AI will eliminate most jobs in a sector?
No. Meyer labels the idea that automation could reach up to 90% of a sector within a decade or a few decades as his thesis, not a fact. The historical record about farming cannot establish AI’s future employment effects.
What comes next in Meyer’s series?
Meyer says Episode 3 will cover mechanical reapers, threshers and tractors. The supplied article does not give a release date for that episode.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
