Agricultural Revolutions
Agricultural revolutions refer to significant periods of innovation and change in agricultural practices, leading to increased food production and efficiency. These revolutions have historically transformed societies by enabling population growth, urbanization, and specialization of labor. Key examples include the Neolithic Revolution, which marked the shift from hunting and gathering to farming, and the Green Revolution, which introduced modern agricultural technologies and practices in the 20th century.
5 Key excerpts on "Agricultural Revolutions"
eBook - ePub- Ester Boserup(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 14 SOME PERSPECTIVES AND IMPLICATIONS Agriculture in Europe and the United States has undergone a radical transformation in the last century. Scientific methods of cultivation have been introduced and mechanized equipment and other industrial products have become widely used. On the background of this technical revolution of agricultural procedures in the already developed world, agrarian change in underdeveloped countries may seem trivial, and it is understandable that many economists should presume that in countries where agriculture has not yet reached the stage of scientific and industrial methods it is stagnant and traditional, almost by definition. The preceding chapters should have shown that this view is unwarranted, and that in the supposedly immutable communities of primitive agriculture profound changes are in fact occurring. Students of economic history have not failed to describe the successive changes within primitive agricultural systems, but this has largely passed unnoticed by economists. They tended to regard the existing methods of cultivation and systems of land use as permanent features of a given locality, reflecting its particular natural conditions, rather than as phases in a process of economic development. In accordance with this view, the causal explanation of differences in cultivation systems was supposed to be a matter for geographers to consider; and these would naturally be inclined to explain differences in agricultural methods in terms of climatic conditions, type of soil and other natural factors which were believed to remain uninfluenced by changes in the size of population...
eBook - ePubThe Conditions of Agricultural Growth
The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure
- Ester Boserup(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 14 SOME PERSPECTIVES AND IMPLICATIONS Agriculture in Europe and the United States has undergone a radical transformation in the last century. Scientific methods of cultivation have been introduced and mechanized equipment and other industrial products have become v/idely used. On the background of this technical revolution of agricultural procedures in the already developed world, agrarian change in underdeveloped countries may seem trivial, and it is understandable that many economists should presume that in countries where agriculture has not yet reached the stage of scientific and industrial methods it is stagnant and traditional, almost by definition. The preceding chapters should have shown that this view is unwarranted, and that in the supposedly immutable communities of primitive agriculture profound changes are in fact occurring. Students of economic history have not failed to describe the successive changes within primitive agricultural systems, but this has largely passed unnoticed by economists. They tended to regard the existing methods of cultivation and systems of land use as permanent features of a given locality, reflecting its particular natural conditions, rather than as phases in a process of economic development. In accordance with this view, the causal explanation of differences in cultivation systems was supposed to be a matter for geographers to consider; and these would naturally be inclined to explain differences in agricultural methods in terms of climatic conditions, type of soil and other natural factors which were believed to remain uninfluenced by changes in the size of population...
eBook - ePub- Matthew N. O. Sadiku(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...4 Green Revolution Accept the past for what it was. Acknowledge the present for what it is. Anticipate the future for what it can become. —Tracy L. McNair 4.1 Introduction Food and agriculture are of paramount importance in any society. Food demand is a complex process that depends on the population size, culture, and human behavior such as habits, traditions, and tastes. Although the principal objective of agriculture is to feed people, the sector has always provided nonfood products such as wool, leather, bioenergy, and agrochemicals [ 1 ]. Economics scholars have long argued that agriculture plays a critical role in the development of a nation. Agriculture is the largest industry in the world, feeding billions of people. It is regarded as the key to improving livelihoods, food security, and nutrition. However, the rapid increase in population, adding one billion people every 14 years, places a heavy burden on the agriculture sector to meet the consequential food demand. The traditional agricultural technology was not able to produce enough food for everyone. In order to be able to feed everyone, there was a need to introduce the latest in science and technology to agriculture production. As shown in Figure 4.1, agriculture may be regarded as a technology that mediates between humans and natural resources [ 2 ]. Figure 4.1 Agriculture mediates between human culture and nature [ 2 ]. Humans have witnessed many revolutions that have dramatically changed lives, such as the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Four of these revolutions are portrayed in Figure 4.2. Another revolution, known as the Green Revolution (GR), occurred and changed the agriculture sector. The GR refers to the transformation in agricultural practices in many parts of the developing nations (such as Mexico, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Malaysia, and the Philippines) that led to a significant increase in agriculture production between 1940 and the 1960s...
- Hugh Clout(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...6 Transforming the farming environment An agricultural revolution The countries of the EC have shared in a veritable 'agricultural revolution' since mid-century that has produced profound changes in the character and scale of farming, has drastically transformed many farmed landscapes, and has had serious implications for the ecology of the countryside (Shoard 1981). Large supplies of labour moved out of the farming sector and have been replaced by unprecedented injections of capital that have been used to acquire machinery, chemicals and other means of intensifying food production. At the same time, an increasing proportion of farmers have been made aware of changing commercial demands and have drastically reorganized their technologies, patterns of production and degree of market orientation in order to satisfy them. Government agencies, co-operatives, marketing and processing corporations, and many other institutions have performed fundamental roles in generating and sustaining this transformation which has been fuelled by finances deriving initially from individual countries and latterly from the costly budget of the Community's Common Agricultural Policy, all set in the context of changing international agreements on trade and aid. In the spirit of the Treaty of Rome, the CAP operates to supply food to the Community at reasonable prices; to provide a fair income to farmers on well-run enterprises; to help enlarge farms and improve their management; and to be sensitive to the needs of trading in food products with the rest of the world...
eBook - ePubAgrarian Reform and Resistance in an Age of Globalisation
The Euro-American World and Beyond, 1780-1914
- Joe Regan, Cathal Smith, Joe Regan, Cathal Smith(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...As rural economies were buffeted by the vagaries of world market demand, their class relationships were shaped and reshaped by the boom and bust cycles of international capitalism. Prevailing labour arrangements were challenged, adapted, or replaced as circumstances required. Integrated transport infrastructures were constructed to provide better access to international markets. Around the world, rural workers considered as “surplus” ended up dislocated from the countryside, setting in motion overlapping and interlinked chains of mass migration. In an era that also witnessed the transnational rise of nationalism, states and political regimes increasingly endeavoured to appeal to competing rural constituencies and citizens, with varying success. 37 In effect, the Industrial Revolution was intimately linked to ongoing, interconnected Agricultural Revolutions in the world economy’s commodity frontiers, which necessarily revolutionised rural societies on a global scale in the course of the long nineteenth century. 38 This perspective provides a fresh way to examine local and national developments in agrarian regions while recognising transnational parallels, contrasts, and links with developments elsewhere. To take one notable example, throughout the world’s commodity frontiers, agricultural modernisation had crucial consequences for gender dynamics, since rural women everywhere were affected by, and participated in, processes of agrarian reform and resistance. Traditional patriarchal ideologies unevenly merged with, or gave way to, paternalistic worldviews that several scholars have linked to capitalist development, affecting how women in peripheral contexts were viewed by others and themselves...
