Detailed notes on further study on the development of agricultural methods from the Agriculture module in a level environmental science. Notes on the documentary 100 years of farming which explores the development of agricultural practices over time. Relevant for a level environmental science stude...
Countryfile – 100 years Of Farming
Coggs Farm, Witney in Oxfordshire, near the River Windrush: Farmhouse dates back to the
13 century. Today, it is a heritage centre, marking the ‘changing face of farming’ over 300
years.
Changes to farming over the last 100 years:
1920s – majority of work was done using horses to plough and cultivate the land,
which required a large amount of land – calculated that by 1930, the average
working horse required 3.5 – 4 acres of land for food.
- Nationally, 800,000 – 1,000,000 horses were being used in agriculture.
- Women were becoming more involved in Agriculture, being encouraged
into the ‘lighter branches of agriculture’, such as dairy and poultry.
Women were beginning to be paid the same as men and better promoted
in the media. These changes in the 1920s has meant that women can own
and operate farms, run national organisations regarding agriculture, be
teachers in agricultural education, and create policy changes today.
- Mary Langman set up Wholefoods in London, focusing not just on farming
but how to produce healthy food.
- Lady Eve Balfour founded The Soil Association in 1946. She began the first
side – by – side comparison of organic and chemical farming.
Tractors - A very small number of tractors were available for use before the First
World War. There was an increase in imported tractors during the First World War in
order to facilitate the Ploughing – up Campaign, but increase in use was not
significantly evident until the 1930s.
- There was an exponential increase of the number of tractor imported
during the Second World War – from less than 16,000 tractors in 1939 –
180,000 by the end of the war. This caused the decline of the use of
horses.
Changes in the 1940s - Before the 1940s, there was no electricity, no supply of water
in the farms. On a 600-acre field, there would be an average 27 workers, ploughing
and cultivating the crops by hand. Today, it would be unusual for a farmer to have
more than one worker.
- Today, typical harvests are four times what they were in
1945.
Efforts to reduce Carbon emissions:
Globally, it is estimated that agriculture produce 25% of emissions, some of which comes
from the $2.5 billion of feed imported for livestock.
Carbon Neutral eggs:
Food waste from Morrisons, such as grape waste is being used to create food for maggots to
feed chickens, rather than imported crops such as soy, reducing emissions produced from
transportation. One unit of the system would save 128 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions
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