Why Is Agriculture Important In English Agriculture

In the human history, agriculture has always played a crucial part in the development of people’s life standards. During the early-modern period, in particular, agriculture represented an essential factor of economic growth. In fact, non-agricultural goods began to be manufactured on a large scale, only when farmers became able to produce a surplus that could feed the growing urban population and that could be exchanged for the said new goods. Moreover, the increasing real wages, encouraged people to consume more dairy products and meat, and this led farmers towards the breeding of draft animals. It was then that these animals began to be used in the agricultural processes, and their manure began to be applied as a fertilizer, making English agriculture more productive. The passage from the open-field system to the enclosures had a great impact on productivity as well, because it fostered farmers to innovate the outdated cultivation methods they used, plus, the
Obviously, the fact that for example, a horse could carry on the work that had to be done by many men, made the demand for the labor of farmers decrease. This led the land to labor ratio go up, making each worker more productive. Moreover, the nitrate-rich animal manure, together with the rotation of different crops, made the soil more fertile. The increase in the land-labor ratio resulted in higher wages for the farmers, who could now afford more non-necessities such as meat and nutritive dairy products. The higher demand for these goods made the revenue of the animal owners experience a sustained growth, which supported them in investing even more in their animal breeding activity. As we can clearly see, this mechanism kept going on in a circle, pushing land and draft animals’ productivity towards higher