Editorial Introduction to Volume I 9date of the last general Inclosure Act. At the same time, wastes, heaths, moors and
commons were enclosed through 1800 Acts between 1760 and the 1840s. Com-
missioners with extensive powers were appointed to redesign the landscape in more
than 3000 parishes. As a result, 2.75 million hectares of common land were
enclosed, comprising 1.82 million hectares of open-field arable, and 0.93 million
hectares of so-called wastes. To put this in perspective, there are about 18 million
hectares of agricultural land in the UK, of which just 4 million are currently under
arable farming, and about half a million still under common land.
In the first paper of this section, Michael Turner and colleagues analyse open-
field agriculture of 17th and 18th century England, and show how collective com-
munity action had developed to protect scarce resources, and how pressure upon
these resources through changing economic and demographic conditions inspired
communities to develop and promote sustainable methods of husbandry and man-
agement. They show how ecological integrity and equitable ownership in decision
making went hand-in-hand. This is in stark contrast to the dominant narrative of
the time – that the commons were inefficient and backward.
The next paper describes the elements of the agricultural change in 17th–18th-
century Europe in what has generally come to be called The Agricultural Revolu-
tion. During a period where there was no government ministry of agriculture, no
national agricultural research or extension agencies, no radio or TV, no pesticides
or inorganic fertilizers, and poor rural transport infrastructure, aggregate cereal
and livestock production increased to unprecedented levels. In the 150 years after
1700, wheat production in Britain increase four-fold, and barley and oats three-
fold; the number of cattle supplied to markets tripled and sheep doubled. Two
components were vital: a wide range of innovative technologies were developed by
farmers, and then these were spread to other farmers through tours, farmer groups,
open days and publications, and then adapted to local conditions by rigorous
experimentation. New crops offered diversification opportunities to farmers by
allowing intensification of land use. Increased fodder supply meant more livestock,
and so increased the supply of manure to improve soil fertility. Selective breeding
of livestock produced more efficient conversion of feed to meat, so permitting
slaughter at an earlier age and higher stocking rates. New labour-saving machinery
released farmers from labour-bottlenecks at cereal and hay harvests, and new tools
and techniques improved the efficiency of seed saving. Farmers widely experi-
mented with livestock breeding, irrigation, drainage, handtools and pest control.
The Green Revolution of the latter half of the 20th century was another sig-
nificant agricultural revolution. Without it, poverty and hunger would be much
more widespread, especially as it coincided with a period of rapid worldwide pop-
ulation growth. In this chapter, drawn from Gordon Conway’s Doubly Green Revo-
lution, the factors of success of the green revolution are discussed and analysed.
Fundamental to success was the application of modern science and technology to
the task of getting crops to yield more. The success of the green revolution lay in
its simplicity. Agricultural scientists bred new varieties of staple cereals that matured
quickly, so permitting two or three crops to be grown each year; that were day-