┼ñAgriculture began to be mechanized in Europe from 1850, but most of the rural population lived in poverty.ñ
Britain led the way in the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Progressive landlords raised yields by selective breeding of livestock, crop rotation, and other progressive farming techniques. In their pursuit of profit, they drove large numbers of tenant farmers and agricultural labourers off the land and into the new industrial towns. The introduction of new farm machinery to replace labourers was a continuation of this process. It led to extensive exports to Europe from Argentina and Australia. Competition from these overseas sources of agricultural produce caused a crisis in European agriculture in the 1870s.
But the march of progress could not be stopped. In the second half of the 19th century, agriculture became increasingly mechanized, especially in the two most industrialized countries in Europe - Britain and Germany. The introduction of horse-drawn harvesters, steam-driven threshing machines, and other farm machinery reduced further the need for labour in the countryside. Britain and Germany became predominantly urban societies, with thinly populated rural areas. In many other European countries, such as France, industrialization was slower, and so was the introduction of new farming methods. The peasants who owned much of French land, divided up into small landholdings, could not afford to invest in machines and fertilizers. Traditional labour-intensive farming continued.
~Farming the great plains~
Farming on the large plains of Poland, the Ukraine, and Hungary was extensively developed in the second half of the 19th century. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire - which included both the Ukraine and most of Poland - had become the leading wheat exporter in the world. It was even ahead of countries such as the United States, Canada, and Argentina, which had begun to develop large-scale mechanized agriculture over their immense, underpopulated territories. They benefited from improved sea transport to Europe, which was their largest market. Toward the end of the 19th century, the introduction of refrigerator ships allowed the export of meat.╜ < ╪ ⌠
