Intro The British Agrarian Revolution is major cause of the Industrial Revolution A product of the Scientific Revolution, the Agrarian Revolution sees science and innovation brought to agriculture, which had remained fairly stagnant since the Middle Ages The Agrarian Revolution begins in the 17th century in Britain

The Farmer as a Scientist Old way of farming: three-field crop rotation Problem: not productive leaves one field empty and unused

The Farmer as a Scientist New way of farming: four-field crop rotation The major significance of this development is MORE fields = MORE food MORE food = MORE people

The Farmer as a Scientist People are healthier Fewer children die People live longer People have more children as prospects in life look better

The Farmer as a Scientist Breeding Animals: Now: Selective Breeding (Breeding for specific traits—like how fat/big the animals are) Ex) Belgian Blue Cow Effect: MORE food, BETTER food = MORE PEOPLE

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur An entrepreneur is a businessman, someone who takes risks investing in companies or starting their own for potentially high rewards

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur Traditional Agriculture = peasants working in the common field (This field didn’t really belong to anyone) Subsistence farming—farming only enough to get by

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur The Enclosure Movement (This is when landowners started fencing in the common land, no longer allowing the peasants to farm it. They wanted to make profit for themselves.)

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur The Enclosure Movement transitions Britain to a market economy and emphasized private property The downside: the poor farmers who lost grazing rights for their cattle or land to farm now needed to find something else to do… They can find a farm to work for They can rent land to farm Or they can more to the city and look for other work (urbanization)

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur Many people ended up in poor houses, which were workhouses that provided shelter and employment for the able-bodied poor

The Farmer as an Entrepreneur EFFECT 1: Farming becomes profit motivated which increases crop yield EFFECT 2: People moved to the city and there is now a ready labor force available in the cities

The Farmer as an Inventor Jesus and the Sower Parable—there is nothing scientific about this method (and I know that the POINT of this parable isn’t to demonstrate how inefficient farming was, but for our purposes, it really does…)

The Farmer as an Inventor New Agricultural Tools: Jethro Tull’s seed drill Thomas Jefferson’s moldboard plow George Washington’s 16-sided barn Portable threshing machine

The Farmer as an Inventor EFFECT 1: Better tools = more food EFFECT 2: Less labor – increased urbanization