Agricultural materials used as feedstocks for industrial processes. For many centuries agricultural products were the main sources of raw material for the manufacturing of soap, paint, ink, lubricants, grease, paper, cloth, drugs, and a host of other nonfood products. During the early 1900s, the advances in organic synthesis in western Europe and the United States led to the use of coal as an alternative resource; in the 1940s, oil and natural gas were added as starting materials as a result of great advances in catalysis and polymer sciences. Since then the petrochemical industry has grown rapidly as the result of the abundance and low price of the starting materials as well as the development of new products. However, with the rapidly increasing economies of the nations of the world, these developments did not ever result in reduction in the utilization of agricultural products as industrial materials.

Animal fats, marine and vegetable oils, and their fatty acid derivatives have always played a major role in the manufacturing of many industrial products. Some of these commodities are produced solely for industrial end uses; examples are linseed, tung, castor (not counting minor amounts used for medicinal purposes), and sperm whale oils. Others, such as tallow and soybean oil, are used for both edible and industrial products.

Starch, cellulosics, and gums also have been used for many centuries as industrial materials, whereas sugar crops, such as sugarcane and sugarbeet, have mainly satisfied world food requirements.

Natural rubber and turpentine are excellent examples of plant-derived hydrocarbons. The development of synthetic rubbers during and after World War II has never threatened the demand for natural rubber; there is generally a world shortage. Turpentine is a product of the wood and paper pulp industry and is used as a solvent and thinner in paints and varnishes.

The threat that industrial nations might be separated from part or all of their traditional sources of raw materials through political and economic upheavals or natural calamities has resulted in a renewed effort to develop additional crops for local agriculture. In the United States, research has provided a number of candidate species that either are now in commercial development or are ready for the time when circumstances warrant such development. Examples are jojoba (liquid wax ester to replace sperm whale oil), guayule (alternate source of natural rubber), kenaf (paper fiber with annual yields much higher than available from trees), and crambe and meadow-foam (long-chain fatty acids, since erucic acid is no longer available from rapeseed oil). There is also active research involving Cuphea species (alternate source of lauric and other medium-chain fatty acids, to augment coconut oil), Vernonia (source of epoxy oil), and several other promising plants. For example, the Chinese tallow tree has the potential of producing 2.2 tons per acre (5 metric tons per hectare) of seed oil that could be used for manufacturing fuel and other chemicals.