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It feels like there's an angle missing to that story. One has to assume there was a reason for that much agriculture being there in the first place and a reason

It feels like there's an angle missing to that story. One has to assume there was a reason for that much agriculture being there in the first place and a reason why it suddenly wasn't in such a high demand anymore, it can't just all be "lack of labor" because then people would probably have starved due to the lack of agricultural products being available.

reggieband 9y ago
I agree, my feeling reading this was "this is more anecdote than history". It feels a bit like the facts fit a pre-defined narrative.
azernik 9y ago
By this point agricultural goods were traded in an international market - wheat was traded overseas, for example. People didn't starve, the global price just went slightly up.
- rumcajz 9y ago
  What I've heard from my grandfather (referring to a close-by region in 1930's) was that the local pub owner ordered 12 bottles of beer each year, on Christmas. It was bought by wealthier villagers as a kind of Christmas treat. The point being that any non-locally-produced food was basically a luxury item even decades after the period in question.
  - chrighenndeter 9y ago
    The thirties may not be the most representative time for this.
mabbo 9y ago
It's not just lack of labor, but lack of profit. Farm efficiency has increased incredibly in the last 200 years. People tend to forget that in 1850, a huge proportion of the population were farmers. Today it's down around 1%. Consider the implications though: each farm may become more efficient, but that increases the food supply, lowering the food price. Then you add in a shrinking population, lowering demand, lowering the price further. Sure, for the right price you could hire labor for your farm, but then you'd lose money on every sale. It's not lack of labor so much as lack of labor at prices you can afford. And this is happening today. A friend of mine is from a large farm family in southern Kentucky. Grain prices are getting so low because of high yields that even with the best technology on hand they can barely make a profit. This is great for consumers (cheap food) but short term fluctuations put smaller farming operations at serious risk. So to answer your initial question of why there was so much agriculture to begin with: it was required to feed the population.
- evgen 9y ago
  It is also the case that marginal farmland can support a small subsistence farmer but be uneconomical for incorporation into large-scale agriculture. Such land will usually end up as woodland/scrub or grazing land over time.
- freeflight 9y ago
  > Farm efficiency has increased incredibly in the last 200 years. People tend to forget that in 1850, a huge proportion of the population were farmers. I was wondering if there might have been some specific "invention", unique to that era, triggering a spike in general farm efficiency, and I think I might have found it [0]. Around 1800 should have been the time where European agriculture became kinda "industrialized", with people putting some actual scientific effort into figuring out what makes crops grow and in what order to best grow them. > And this is happening today. A friend of mine is from a large farm family in southern Kentucky. Grain prices are getting so low because of high yields that even with the best technology on hand they can barely make a profit. I wonder how much of that problem is due to, by now, unrealistic "profit expectations", for industrialized agriculture? Heck, as idealistic as it may sound, maybe the problem is that we expect to make "money" of something as essential as food in the very first place? Could farmers be self-sustainable, if they didn't have to worry about scaling up to support "commercial interests"? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer#Key_figures_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer#Key_figu...

reggieband 9y ago

I agree, my feeling reading this was "this is more anecdote than history". It feels a bit like the facts fit a pre-defined narrative.

azernik 9y ago

By this point agricultural goods were traded in an international market - wheat was traded overseas, for example. People didn't starve, the global price just went slightly up.

rumcajz 9y ago
What I've heard from my grandfather (referring to a close-by region in 1930's) was that the local pub owner ordered 12 bottles of beer each year, on Christmas. It was bought by wealthier villagers as a kind of Christmas treat. The point being that any non-locally-produced food was basically a luxury item even decades after the period in question.
- chrighenndeter 9y ago
  The thirties may not be the most representative time for this.

mabbo 9y ago

It's not just lack of labor, but lack of profit. Farm efficiency has increased incredibly in the last 200 years. People tend to forget that in 1850, a huge proportion of the population were farmers. Today it's down around 1%. Consider the implications though: each farm may become more efficient, but that increases the food supply, lowering the food price. Then you add in a shrinking population, lowering demand, lowering the price further. Sure, for the right price you could hire labor for your farm, but then you'd lose money on every sale. It's not lack of labor so much as lack of labor at prices you can afford. And this is happening today. A friend of mine is from a large farm family in southern Kentucky. Grain prices are getting so low because of high yields that even with the best technology on hand they can barely make a profit. This is great for consumers (cheap food) but short term fluctuations put smaller farming operations at serious risk. So to answer your initial question of why there was so much agriculture to begin with: it was required to feed the population.

evgen 9y ago
It is also the case that marginal farmland can support a small subsistence farmer but be uneconomical for incorporation into large-scale agriculture. Such land will usually end up as woodland/scrub or grazing land over time.
freeflight 9y ago
> Farm efficiency has increased incredibly in the last 200 years. People tend to forget that in 1850, a huge proportion of the population were farmers. I was wondering if there might have been some specific "invention", unique to that era, triggering a spike in general farm efficiency, and I think I might have found it [0]. Around 1800 should have been the time where European agriculture became kinda "industrialized", with people putting some actual scientific effort into figuring out what makes crops grow and in what order to best grow them. > And this is happening today. A friend of mine is from a large farm family in southern Kentucky. Grain prices are getting so low because of high yields that even with the best technology on hand they can barely make a profit. I wonder how much of that problem is due to, by now, unrealistic "profit expectations", for industrialized agriculture? Heck, as idealistic as it may sound, maybe the problem is that we expect to make "money" of something as essential as food in the very first place? Could farmers be self-sustainable, if they didn't have to worry about scaling up to support "commercial interests"? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer#Key_figures_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer#Key_figu...