Agricultural Revolution

The agricultural revolution was the advances in technology that dramatically changed our ability to grow, process and distribute food; the first agricultural revolution occurred when people domesticated plants and animals 12000 years ago; in the 1700's CE, farmers applied scientific ideas and new machines to produce more food.

This revolution had a significant influence in modern society, as it allowed humans to incorporate machines and other forms of technology while farming causing higher yields to be harvested. This allows us today, to feed the growing population and spend less time in primary sectors and more amounts of time shaping our future, by providing services to others. (tertiary industry).

Additionally, it allows us to have time to do other worker, such as learn and be educated, which would not have been possible without the machines being invented, as all children and adults would have to spend time farming, to survive.

Black farmers in America have had a long and arduous struggle to own land and to

operate independently. For more than a century after the Civil War, deficient civil rights

and various economic and social barriers were applied to maintaining a system where

many blacks worked as farm operators with a limited and often total lack of opportunity

to achieve ownership and operating independence. Diminished civil rights also limited

collective action strategies, such as cooperatives and unions. Even so, various types

of cooperatives, including farmer associations, were organized in black farming communities

prior to the 1960s. During the 1960s, the civil rights movement brought a new

emphasis on cooperatives. Leaders and organizations adopted an explicit purpose

and role of black cooperatives in pursuing independent farming. Increasingly, new

technology and integrated contracting systems are diminishing independent decisionmaking

in the management of farms. As this trend expands, more cooperatives may

be motivated, with a determination similar to those serving black farmers, to pursue

proactive strategies for maintaining independent farming.

Acknowledgments

The idea of conducting this research was developed from reading an unpublished

manuscript by a co-worker, Beverly Rotan, which was based on several case studies

of black farmer cooperatives. Her research indicated that historical background was

essential to understanding many of the current conditions for black farmers and their

cooperatives. Discussions with Beverly and another co-worker, Edgar Lewis, were

indispensable in the effort to adequately understand the goals and practices of black

farmers and cooperatives. John Zippert of the Federation of Southern

Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund provided background on some of the major developments

of black farmer cooperatives during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as providing

a substantial set of key documents. The historical component of this report relied to

a large extent on three excellent books by the Smithsonian Institution scholar, Pete

Daniel (see the References section). Furthermore, he reviewed an earlier version. His

suggestions were helpful for making several improvements in this report. A second

version was reviewed by Professor Robert Zabawa of Tuskegee University and

Spencer Wood, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin. They

offered several excellent critical observations and suggestions.

#1 Identify the features of the 18th century Agricultural Revolution and analyze its social and economic consequences

Thesis: The technological advances in the eighteenth century slowly allowed for the advancement of people's lives economically, but social injustice remained.

1.Crop Rotation

a.Eliminated fallow season by alternating grain with nitrogen-storing crops

i.Peas, beans, turnips (Charles Townsend), potatoes, clovers, and grasses

b.New crops made ideal feed for animals

i.Build their herds of cattle

1.More animals mean more meat, better diets, and more manure for fertilizer (which means more grain).

2.The Low Countries and England

a.Farming in the Low Countries was already developed

b.English learned their farming techniques from the Netherlands

i.Drainage and water control

c.Jethro Tull

i.Horses instead of oxen

ii.Sowing seed with drilling equipment

d.Robert Bakewell

i.Animal husbandry and selective breeding

e.By 1870 English farmers were producing 300% more food than in 1700 and their working population only grew by 14%

f.Produced food for England's rapidly growing urban population

3.Enclosures

a.Agricultural scientists realized the peasants needed to consolidate their holding to be more efficient.

b.The poor didn't want to: common rights were very important to them

c.The noble landowners didn't want to risk it b/c it required large investments.

d.Large landowners controlled English Parliament.

i.Passed enclosure acts that fenced off and divided the common pasture

1.Heavy legal and surveying costs. Peasants had to sell out to pay expenses

2.landless cottagers lost access to the common pasture w/o compensation

e.Three groups of landownership and production

i.Few large landowners

ii.Large amount of landless cottagers

iii.In the middle, small independent farmers and tenant farmers.

1.Small independent farmers declined in number since early enclosures. Couldn't compete w/ the tenant farmers

f.Enclosures didn't force people off the land by eliminating jobs

i.But eliminating common rights and reducing the access of poor people to the land had two developments:

1.market-oriented estate agriculture

2.emergence of a landless rural proletariat (proletarianization)