Question

Was the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages truly a revolution? What types of changes took place in farming? How did these new agricultural methods lead to larger societal changes in the Middle Ages?

While it is true that food production increased and made possible the growth of trade and the growth of cities, but what types of social changes occurred in countryside?

Answer 1

• The Agricultural Revolution, the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries, was linked to such new agricultural practices as crop rotation, selective breeding, and a more productive use of arable land.
• The Agricultural Revolution was the unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. However, historians continue to dispute whether the developments leading to the unprecedented agricultural growth can be seen as “a revolution,” since the growth was, in fact, a result of a series of significant changes that took place over a long period of time.
  
• One of the most important innovations of the 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 occurs when one plant species is continuously cropped.
• The four-field rotation system allowed farmers to restore soil fertility and restore some of the plant nutrients removed with the crops. Turnips first show up in the probate records in England as early as 1638 but were not widely used until about 1750.
• Certain practices that contributed to a more productive use of land intensified, such as converting some pasture land into arable land and recovering fen land and pastures.
• The mechanization and rationalization of agriculture was a key factor of the Agricultural Revolution. New tools were invented and old ones perfected to improve the efficiency of various agricultural operations.The Dutch plough was brought to Britain by Dutch contractors.
• The increase in agricultural production and technological advancements during the Agricultural Revolution contributed to unprecedented population growth and new agricultural practices, triggering such phenomena as rural-to-urban migration, development of a coherent and loosely regulated agricultural market, and emergence of capitalist farmers.
• The rise in productivity accelerated the decline of the agricultural share of the labor force, adding to the urban workforce on which industrialization depended. The Agricultural Revolution has therefore been cited as a cause of the Industrial Revolution. As enclosure deprived many of access to land or left farmers with plots too small and of poor quality, increasing numbers of workers had no choice but migrate to the city.
  
• With the development of regional markets and eventually a national market aided by improved transportation infrastructures, farmers were no longer dependent on their local markets. This freed them from having to lower prices in an oversupplied local market and the inability to sell surpluses to distant localities experiencing shortages. They also became less subject to price fixing regulations. Farming became a business rather than solely a means of subsistence.
• It facilitated and promoted many revolutionary social changes: urbanism and urbanization, writing and accounting, division of labour, concentration of population, and the formation of social classes based upon allocation of the food surplus (aristocracy, scribes, civil servants, accountants, military, police, traders, legal professions, medical practitioners, engineers, planners, infrastructure builders, trainers, food producers and the disenfranchised).