The British Agricultural Revolution, or Second Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in the productivity of labour and land between the mid-17th (or earlier) and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world.
This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of the population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the 19th century as the population almost quadrupled to over 35 million.
From 1700 to 1850, agricultural productivity per labourer increased by a factor of 2.5. The rise in productivity accelerated the decline of the agricultural share of the labour force, adding to the urban workforce on which industrialisation depended: the Agricultural Revolution has therefore been cited as an enabling factor for the Industrial Revolution.
However, historians continue to dispute when exactly such a "revolution" took place and of what it consisted. Rather than a single event, G. E. Mingay states that there were a "profusion of agricultural revolutions, one for two centuries before 1650, another emphasising the century after 1650, a third for the period 1750–1780, and a fourth for the middle decades of the nineteenth century".G. E. Mingay (ed.) (1977), The Agricultural Revolution: Changes in Agriculture 1650–1880, p. 3 This has led more recent historians to argue that any general statements about "the Agricultural Revolution" are difficult to sustain.Peter Jones (2016), Agricultural Enlightenment: Knowledge, Technology, and Nature, 1750–1840, p. 7See also Joel Mokry (2009), The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700–1850, p. 173
One important change in farming methods was the move in crop rotation to turnips and clover in place of fallow under the Norfolk four-course system. Turnips can be grown in winter and are deep-rooted, allowing them to gather elements unavailable to shallow-rooted crops. Clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form of fertiliser. This permitted the intensive arable cultivation of light soils on enclosed farms and provided fodder to support increased livestock numbers whose manure added further to soil fertility.
Terminology Called "British", the term implies that the revolution began in Britain, not that it existed solely in Britain. Other countries in EuropeThe agricultural productivity per worker also rose across Europe in the 19th century. P. Bairoch, "Niveau de développement économique de 1810 à 1910", Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, 20, (1965): pp 1091—1017. (including France,Also for France, P. T. Hoffman, Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450–1815, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 135. Prussia (Germany),In Prussia, the share of non-agricultural manpower rose by 30% between 1815 and 1849. Richard Tilly, "Capital formation in Germany in the nineteenth century", in Peter Mathias, & M. M. Postan, eds., Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1978, vol 7, p 441.Michael Kopsidis, & Nikolaus Wolf, "Agricultural Productivity across Prussia during the Industrial Revolution", Journal of Economic History, vol. 72, no. 3 (2012), pp. 634–670.Christof Dipper, Deutsche Geschichte, 1648–1789, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1991, pp. 91–102.Walther Hoffmann, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin: Springer, 1965, pp 202–215. and RussiaIn Russia in 1867–1915, cereal yields increased by 48% and in 1861; serfdom was abolished, indicating increase in output per peasant. Vladimir Obukhov, "Движение урожаев зерновых культур в Европейской России в период 1883–1915" [Change in yields of grain crops in European Russia in the period 1883–1915], Исторические Материалы, 2015V. G. Rastyannikov & I. V. Deryugina, Урожайность хлебов в России. 1795–2007 [Crop yields in Russia 1795–2007], Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies, 2009, p. 71.), East AsiaIn Japan the yields took off in the 1880s. Brown, Lester R. (2012). Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (New York & London: W. W. Norton), p 72J. I. Nakamura, Agricultural Production and the Economic Development of Japan, 1873–1922, Princeton University Press, 1966. and North AmericaIn the US between 1860 and 1890, the production of basic agricultural commodities, such as wheat, corn and cotton, outstripped all previous figures. Agricultural Statistics, 1910. Washington: US Department of Agriculture, 1911.The productivity per farmer also rose. By 1880, the farm population in the US declined to 43.8% of the total population despite large increase in the farmland since the 1860s. "Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970", US Census Bureau, 1975, p. 457. followed suit in the next two centuries. The Second Agricultural Revolution was much like the Neolithic Revolution in that it occurred in many regions across the world in a short span of time.
The British origins of the revolution is the view shared by British historians. Dutch historians disagree. In the Netherlands between 1500 and 1650, the agricultural output per labourer rose by 80% leading to over 60% decline in manpower engaged in agriculture by 1650.Jan de Vries, & Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp 672–673, 710. From 1500 to 1750, the Dutch were faster than Britain in reducing the agricultural sector of population. The Netherlands were called the "school room" or "home" of the modern agricultural revolution.C. K. Warner, Agrarian Conditions in Early Modern Europe, London: Routledge, 1966, p 24. Notably, one of the innovations in the British Revolution was the "Dutch" light plough. English landowners and their agents who returned from exile in the Netherlands in the 17th century introduced Dutch methods and techniques.Herman Van der Wee, The Low Countries in the Early Modern World, Variorum: Amsterdam, 1993, p. 55–57.E. L. Jones, Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1650–1815, London: Methuen, 1967, p 8.
The term "revolution" refers to increase in yields per land and labour. Innovations in agricultural technology and methods took place gradually rather than an abrupt sweeping alteration.J. D. Chambers, & G. E. Mingay, The Agricultural Revolution, 1750–1880, London: Routledge, 1966, pp. 2–3.Dwight Heald Perkins, Agricultural Development in China, Chicago: Routledge, 1969, pp 56–57.
Major developments and innovations The British Agricultural Revolution was the result of the complex interaction of social, economic and farming technological changes. Major developments and innovations include:
Norfolk four-course crop rotation: fodder crops, particularly turnips and clover, replaced leaving the land fallow. Farm machinery: Adaptation of the heavy, mould-board iron plough so that it could be pulled with fewer oxen or horses; the seed drill Selective breeding Enclosure: the removal of common rights to establish exclusive ownership of land Development of a national market free of tariffs, tolls and customs barriers Transportation infrastructures, such as improved roads, canals, and later, railways Land conversion, land drains and reclamation Increase in farms
Crop rotation
+Crop yield net of seed(bushels/acre)YearWheatRyeBarleyOatsPeas &beansGrowth rate (%/year) ‡1250–12998.7110.7110.257.246.03−0.261300–13498.2410.369.466.606.14−0.0321350–13997.469.219.747.495.860.611400–14495.8910.468.446.555.420.081450–14996.4813.968.565.954.490.481550–15997.889.218.407.877.62−0.161600–164910.4516.2811.1610.978.62−0.111650–169911.3614.1912.4810.828.390.641700–174913.7914.8215.0812.2710.230.701750–179917.2617.8721.8820.9014.190.371800–184923.1619.5225.9028.3717.850.631850–189926.6926.1823.8231.3616.30—Est. ave.seed sown2.52.53.5–4.32.5–4.02.5–3.0 ‡ Average annual growth rate of agricultural output is per agricultural worker.
Yields have had the seed used to plant the crop subtracted to give net yields. Other authors offer different estimates. (1 bushel/acre = 0.06725 tonnes/hectare)
One of the most important innovations of the British Agricultural Revolution was the development of the Norfolk four-course rotation, which greatly increased crop and livestock yields by improving soil fertility and reducing fallow.
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons to help restore plant nutrients and mitigate the build-up of pathogens and pests that often occur when one plant species is continuously cropped. Rotation can also improve soil structure and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants. Turnip roots, for example, can recover nutrients from deep under the soil. As it is now known, the Norfolk four-course system rotates crops so that different crops are planted, resulting in various kinds and quantities of nutrients being taken from the soil as the plants grow. An essential feature of the Norfolk four-field system was that it used labour at times when demand was not at peak levels.
Planting cover crops such as turnips and clover was not permitted under the common field system because they interfered with access to the fields. Besides, other people's livestock could graze the turnips. During the Middle Ages, the open-field system had initially used a two-field crop rotation system where one field was left fallow or turned into pasture for a time to try to recover some of its plant nutrients. Later they employed a three-year, three field crop rotation routine, with a different crop in each of two fields, e.g. oats, rye, wheat, and barley with the second field growing a legume like peas or beans, and the third field fallow. Normally from 10% to 30% of the arable land in a three crop rotation system is fallow. Each field was rotated into a different crop nearly every year. Over the following two centuries, the regular planting of legumes in the fields that were previously fallow slowly restored the fertility of some croplands. The planting of legumes helped to increase plant growth in the empty field because of the ability of the bacteria on legume roots to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil in a form that plants could use. Other crops that were occasionally grown were flax and members of the mustard family.
Convertible husbandry was the alternation of a field between pasture and grain. Because nitrogen builds up slowly over time in pasture, ploughing up pasture and planting grains resulted in high yields for a few years. A big disadvantage of convertible husbandry was the hard work in breaking up pastures and difficulty in establishing them. The significance of convertible husbandry is that it introduced pasture into the rotation.