Engineering Agriculture at Texas A&M: The First Hundred Years by Henry C. Dethloff and Stephen W. Searcy (review)

Henry C. Dethloff and Stephen W. Searcy describe the first hundred years of what is currently the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. The authors chart the growth of the department, which was established as a distinct unit in 1915, and in doing so also describe the transformation of agriculture in Texas, the South, and the United States. Changes in American farming practices in the twentieth century have in many ways been engineering changes, too—electrification and mechanization in the early twentieth century, then resource conservation and management (especially of water), and by the later twentieth century the development of computer technology, bioengineering, and environmental concerns.

Engineering Agriculture at Texas A&M: The First Hundred Years emphasizes the role of the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department in these changes. Mechanization and electrification, for example, required coordination between merchants and manufacturers, who both had to know what farmers wanted and needed. Likewise, the farmers needed to know what was available. The department provided this information through demonstrations, education, and collaborations with organizations like the Agricultural Extension Service. Formally and informally, the Department of Agricultural Engineering (as it was originally known) played a role in getting the different parts of agricultural production together. As the authors put it, “The farmer, the merchant, and the agricultural engineer effectually united, creating a technology team to improve agricultural productivity” (p. 31).

For those not associated with the department or university, the most valuable parts of this book will be the practical discussions of what agricultural evolution actually looks like. What do we mean by improved agricultural efficiency? How does it work? Given cotton’s importance in southern agriculture, the crop plays a key role in the book, which describes how agricultural engineering helped improve cotton-picking machines, cotton storage and transfer, and cotton ginning. The book also provides brief glimpses at other issues; for example, it describes some of the tension between the emphasis of turn-of-the-twentieth-century universities on classical education and the initiatives of the Department of Agricultural Engineering. However, this book will most appeal to those with connections to agricultural engineering and especially to Texas A&M. It is a physically beautiful book, well designed and printed in color. Lengthy lists of specific faculty members and their backgrounds and awards suggest the authors’ relationship with and affection for the department and the field. The authors (an emeritus and a current professor at Texas A&M) are a part of this history, and it shows.

That connection is perhaps part of why the book feels limited. It is not intended to be a grand history of agriculture in Texas or the South and should not be faulted for not being such. The book tells a specific story about a specific group of people, some of whom are its primary audience. But the authors conceive of their subjects as “institutions that have consistently responded to the needs of society by addressing emerging problems, both short and long term” (p. ix). This describes agricultural engineers and the related infrastructure (land-grant universities and associated agencies) as essentially reactive, ignoring their role in shaping agricultural change and thus ignoring some important questions. The decline in the number of farmers in Texas is attributed to economic changes and natural disaster and not, say, to the alliance of government and big agriculture. Unionization and restrictions on immigration are treated as labor issues, not human or moral problems. Racial discrimination is not a part of the story. Sharecroppers and tenants are practically invisible. This kind of approach perhaps makes the book more appealing to an audience associated with the department and the university, but it somewhat limits the book’s interest for a larger readership.