Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tain - how to feed the massively expanding working class population that provided
heap labour for the Industrial Revolution. 1 Britain was in the midst of one of the
most tumultuous transformations in human history: one part of that dynamic was
the rapid shift in population from being almost entirely rural (and living close to
food sources) to being almost entirely urban (and separated from easily available
food). This transition was by no means easy, and the 1840s became known as the
'Hungry Forties' as an exploding urban population outstripped the capacity of Brit-
ish farmers to produce food (even in a period of massive expansion in agricultural
productivity), leading to bread riots in the cities of the English Midlands and a pro-
gressive stripping of all transportable food crops from nearby colonies like Ireland
(leaving the local populace dependent on the potato - with devastating effects in the
potato famine of 1845/46 (Salaman, 1949)).
The Hungry Forties emerge as one of the most pivotal decades in defining the
long term trajectories and impacts of the Industrial Revolution on global food and
agricultural systems. Central to this effect was the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846,
purportedly to 'assist' with the Irish Potato Famine, but actually signifying a muh
deeper shift in the political intent of colonial Britain. At face value, the Corn Laws
had been a bastion of the entrenhed economic privileges of the landed gentry and
new capitalist farming class who received a guaranteed income protected by border
tariffs on imported grains. The ability of the British Parliament to repeal the Corn
Laws in 1846 signalled not only a shift in economic power from rural to urban Bri-
tain, but also demonstrated the power of the 'Frenh example'. In the lifetimes of
most parliamentarians, memories were strong in terms of what could happen in even
the most wealthy European powers if a large urban populace was insufficiently well
fed. Rather than reproduce Marie Antoinete's less than successful strategy to 'Let
them eat cake', the British Parliament proposed that the solution to bread riots in
Manhester was to 'Let them eat imported grain'. It was best to conveniently ignore
that this grain was being imported from the Irish colony whih was, at that very mo-
ment, being wraked by one of Europe's most harrowing famines.
A subsequent revolution in global transport infrastructure (from canals to rail-
ways, steamships, and motorized transport) opened up a vast range of possibilities
for sourcing imported grain. In 1863, Anthony Trollope wrote of grain flowing in
'rivers' out of the American Mid-West to feed the Industrial Revolution. At the same
time, this river of grain was joined by other significant tributaries running from the
Canadian prairies, Argentine pampas, Australian river valleys, New Zealand grass-
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