Agriculture



Agriculture is the cultivation of animals and plants to create products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture is key to the growth of any society, with surpluses in food encouraging further development. The success and implementation of agricultural techniques depends greatly on the climate, culture, resources, and technology involved, in addition to the availability of reliable and pure water supplies.

Following the Great War, agricultural production in the United States was gravely affected, with all modern agrochemicals and industrial farming methods lost. Societal knowledge of agriculture was all but lost during that time. Once humans began to reemerge and rebuild the land, revival of agriculture rapidly followed.

California and Oregon


During the 2100s, emergent agriculture was highly limited and prone to failure throughout the former Northwest and Southwest Commonwealths. Where agriculture was able to take root, it was limited to barely more than subsistence farming carried out by small villages or towns. The Water Merchants of the Hub would play an instrumental role in the delivery of water throughout the region, thus spurring on further agricultural development. The town of Adytum was unique at the time for being able to conduct hydroponic farming.



By the 2200s, with the rise of the New California Republic (NCR) and the elimination of various raider and super mutant threats, agriculture was allowed to grow further. Dedicated farms and ranches could now be maintained to feed the growing population. Unified behind the NCR, the citizens and communities of the region would finally gain a reliable source of food and water.

Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia
The Capital Wasteland was a very precarious place for the development of agriculture. The area lacked a reliable source of clean water as the Potomac River was irradiated and hazardous to use. Hostile wildlife, not to mention bands of Raiders and Super Mutants, also prevented the establishment of many large communities which could sustain agricultural endeavors.

Project Purity, constructed within the ruins of the Jefferson Memorial, would provide an answer to the Capital Wasteland’s water problem. Dr. Madison Li, along with Catherine and James, were instrumental in the initial development of the project. Project Purity was finally brought online sometime in late 2277 or early 2278, thanks to the efforts of the Lone Wanderer and the Brotherhood of Steel.



The Enclave had intentions of seizing Project Purity for their own genocidal ends. John Henry Eden, President of the Enclave, intended to introduce a modified strain of the Forced Evolutionary Virus into the purifier at the Jefferson Memorial that would kill any living thing which had been in any way affected by the radiation of the Capital Wasteland. Had the Enclave been successful, not only would the drinking water have become infected, ultimately any agricultural grown with the same water would have been as well.

Nevada


The lack of significant radiation from nuclear attacks, as had befallen the rest of the country, meant that agriculture in the Mojave Wasteland rebounded which more successfully than was possible elsewhere. Hoover Dam and Lake Mead provided ample fresh water for farms and ranches in the region, especially once the local infrastructure was repaired by the NCR following the First Battle of Hoover Dam in 2277. Agriculture in the Mojave perhaps resembled pre-war practices as closely as was possible in the two centuries following the Great War.

The NCR Office of Science and Industry (OSI) took great interest in the region, hoping to learn new agricultural techniques to take back west to prevent potential food shortages. Responsible for overseeing farming efforts around New Vegas, the OSI branch in the Mojave Wasteland is headquartered in Camp McCarran and led by Director Thomas Hildern. Hildern was also interested in convincing the Courier to mount an expedition to nearby Vault 22 to recover experimental agricultural data.

Massachusetts


Agricultural production in the Commonwealth seems largely unhindered by environmental concerns, with access to arable lands and usable water readily available. Several settlements in the region were specifically dedicated to agriculture, going as far as to use greenhouses to grow crops. Raiders, however, were a constant concern as they saw the agricultural settlements as an easy food source without having to expend their time and resources on actual farming.

The Institute considered agricultural production to be a key priority and dedicated any entire division to engineering and producing a viable food stock for their staff. Dr. Clayton Holdren is the Head of Biosciences at the Institute in 2287.

New California

 * Arroyo: The town works within hunting, farming, and brahmin handling. They produce broc flower and xander root, and other vegetables. Additionally, they produce brahmin and gecko products. Hakunin grew hallucinogenic plants.
 * Boneyard: The town of Adytum produces their own food with hydroponic farms, and use chemical elements such as brahmin dung to create ammunition.
 * The Hub: The city refines and trades water, and additionally holds farms. In 2161, one farm had a donkey.
 * Klamath: The town produces and trades gecko meats and pelts, brahmin products, as well as plants and vegetables.
 * Modoc: A dedicated farming town, it produces brahmin foods and leather. It additionally produces crops, as well as fruits, such as apples. At one point, a woman named Rose created deathclaw omelettes.
 * New Reno: Myron produced jet in the Stables from brahmin dung.
 * Necropolis: The city uses a large water pump to sustain the city.
 * Shady Sands: Completely self-sufficient, the city irrigates local soil to support crop production, producing primarily maize and cabbage. They additionally drilled wells to provide water. The city is well-known for its brahmin farming, populated by many ranchers, agri-barons, and brahmin barons, producing brahmin foods and leather for trade.
 * San Francisco: The Shi are known to produce and trade seaweed, fish, and rice.
 * Vault City: The Vault produces medical items, such as stimpaks.

Capital Wasteland

 * Anchorage Memorial: Before mercenary groups wiped out the facility, traders bred and butchered mirelurks for their meats.
 * Little Lamplight: The bodies of the adult humans dumped in the pools of the caverns created a cave fungus capable of being a viable long-term food source and decreasing radiation.
 * Point Lookout: The swampfolk cultivate the naturally growing Punga fruit. The local tribals have managed to refine the fruit, increasing their health effects. The region is also vibrant with yeast, leading to moonshining.
 * Rivet City: The only instance of farming in the Capital Wasteland, the science lab led by Madison Li used hydroponics farming to create herbs, potatoes, apples, pears, and carrots. Janice Kaplinski hoped to eventually be able to create broccoli.

Mojave Wasteland

 * Goodsprings: The town draws water from Goodsprings Source, and has a significant local gecko and big horner population.
 * Jacobstown: The town supports itself through big horner breeding.
 * Nellis Air Force Base: Entirely self-sufficient, the Boomers draw water from Lake Mead, grow their own crops, grains, soy, and legumes to name a few, and use solar arrays for power.
 * Sharecropper Farms: The main source of farming in the New Vegas and Mojave Wasteland area, they cultivate and harvest various food items to feed settlers and soldiers in the region.
 * Vault 22: The Vault produced plants and crops within its confines, resulting in a mutagen creating spore plants and spore carriers.
 * Westside: After managing to secretly direct water to Westside, the community began creating crops. The Westside Co-op supports local agriculture industry, and is a primary reason for Westside's independence.
 * Zion Canyon: The local tribes cultivate daturana, creating antivenoms, performance enhancing and hallucinogenic drugs. Big horners, geckos, and yao guai are hunted for pelts, fur, and food.

The Commonwealth

 * Abernathy farm: A family farm that produces a significant crop output.
 * Breakheart Banks: A family farm overrun by super mutants shortly before October of 2287.
 * County crossing: A small farm situated on the outskirts of Boston that grows mutfruit.
 * Diamond City: The town contains a large farm in the eastern section with brahmin and a large variety of crops. A greenhouse can also be found in the town.
 * Finch farm: A family run farm near an overpass that grows mutfruit and corn.
 * Graygarden: Completed before the war and staffed solely by modified Mister Handy robots, Graygarden boasts a significant agricultural output unrivaled by much else in the entire Commonwealth.
 * Greentop Nursery: A small settlement centered around an old greenhouse.
 * Oberland station: A small farm growing tato plants by a railroad.
 * Somerville Place: A farm on the edge of the Glowing Sea growing corn plants.
 * Tenpines Bluff: A small settlement that farms tatos in the northern reaches of the Commonwealth.
 * The Slog: Run by ghouls and made from an old swimming pool to cultivate tarberries.
 * Vault 81: The Vault contains a hydroponics room run by Priscilla Penske, a biologist working to grow radiation-free food from mutated plants.
 * Warwick Homestead: Built atop an old waste treatment plan that provided fertile soil to grow crops.

The Island

 * Acadia: A pre-War observatory inhabited by synths, growing produce indoors.
 * Dalton farm: A farm run by Cassie Dalton and her family before it was attacked by a fog crawler.

Appearances
Agriculture appears across all games of the Fallout series.