Agricultural Specialisation and Rural Patterns of Development by Annie Antoine

Agricultural Specialisation and Rural Patterns of Development by Annie Antoine

In agricultural history, specialisation is usually considered as progress, turning peasants into market-orientated farmers and allowing them to escape from self-sufficiency. Recent developments in the field of productivist agriculture and the recent rise of alternative agriculture cast doubt on this conventional concept of agricultural specialisation. Several questions arise: Did specialisation necessarily mean that farms concentrated on a single product? Was it always a great step forward? Did it occur in the same form in earlier centuries as in contemporary economies? The chapters of this book draw attention to several factors relevant to processes of specialisation, such as markets, transport, and the natural environment. The contributions deal with regions in 10 countries of Europe, from Sweden to Spain and from England to Bulgaria, and with periods between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries. They suggest several conclusions. Specialisation can take place in various forms, ranging from focussing on a single major cash crop to giving preference to a combination of products. This is true both at the level of an individual farm as at a regional level. Specialisation did not always improve the farmers' standard of living. And it was neither a linear nor an irreversible process. This can be observed in periods of war, but also in recent developments in post-communist countries.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9782503532288
ISBN 10	2503532284
Title	Agricultural Specialisation and Rural Patterns of Development
Author	Annie Antoine
Series	Rural History In Europe Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Brepols N.V.
Year published	2017-01-05
Number of pages	303
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.