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 agricultural was all but lost during that time . Once humans began to reemerge and rebuild the land , revival of agricultural rapidly followed . Background . California and Oregon . During the 2100s , emergent agriculture was highly limited and prone to failure throughout the former Northwest and Southwest Commonwealth s . 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 . Appearances . Agriculture appears across all games of the " Fallout " series .