page_title: Agriculture in the United Kingdom
section_title: 1850 to 1939
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in the United Kingdom / History / 1850 to 1939
caption_attribution_description: English: "Automobile plow" in use in England, 1905. A man driving a tractor followed by man behind the tractor-drawn plough.
context_page_description: Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area, employs 1.5% of its workforce and contributes 0.6% of its gross value added. The UK produces less than 60% of the food it consumes. Agricultural activity occurs in most rural locations, it is concentrated in East Anglia and the South West. There are 212,000 farm holdings, which vary widely in size.
  Despite skilled farmers, advanced technology, fertile soil and subsidies, farm earnings are relatively low, mainly due to low prices at the farm gate. Low earnings, high land prices and a shortage of let farmland discourage young people from joining the industry. The average age of the British farm holder is now about 60.
  Recently there have been moves towards organic farming in an attempt to sustain profits, and many farmers supplement their income by diversifying activities away from pure agriculture. Biofuels present new opportunities for farmers against a background of rising fears about fossil fuel prices, energy security, and climate change. There is increasing awareness that farmers have an important role to play as custodians of the British countryside and wildlife.
context_section_description: The American Civil War ended in 1865, and by 1875, with new steam-powered railways and ships, the United States was exporting a substantial excess of cereals.  At the same time, Britain suffered a series of poor harvests.  By 1891 reliable refrigeration technology brought cheap frozen meat from Australia, New Zealand and South America to the British market, and Parliament felt it had to intervene to support British farming.  The Agricultural Holdings (England) Act 1875 revamped the law on tenant right such that tenants received consistent levels of compensation for the value of their improvements to the holding and any crops in the ground.  It also gave tenants the right to remove fixtures they had provided, increased the period of a Notice to Quit from six months to twelve, and brought in an agricultural dispute resolution procedure.
  Some Landlords reacted to the 1875 Act by refusing to let land on a tenancy, instead contracting out the labour to contract farmers.  Parliament responded with the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act 1883, which prevented contracting out on terms less favourable than a normal tenancy.  Subsequent Agricultural Holdings Acts in 1900 and 1906 further refined the dispute resolution procedure; required landlords to compensate tenants for their damaged crops if the damage was caused by game that the landlord did not allow tenants to kill; allowed tenants to choose for themselves what crops to grow, except in the last year of the tenancy; and prevented penal rents being charged except in special circumstances.  The mass of legislation was consolidated in another Act of 1908.  Further Agricultural Holdings Acts came into force in 1914, two in 1920, and a further consolidating Act in 1923.
  Invented in around 1885, the digging plough is a plough with a wider share, which cuts a wider shallower furrow, after which the slice of soil is inverted by a short concave mould-board with a sharp turn.  This has the effect of breaking up and pulverising the soil, leaving no visible furrow and facilitating the use of a seed drill for planting.  Earlier ploughs were simply large hoes for stirring the soil, drawn by animals, that left furrows suitable for distribution of seed by hand.
  The Board of Agriculture was established by Act of Parliament in 1889.  Although rationing during the First World War was limited to the end of 1917 and 1918, a change of mood arose about food security, and the Ministry of Food was created in 1916.  There was a national feeling that a man who had fought for his country should be entitled to retire to a smallholding on British land that would provide him with a livelihood.  This led to various initiatives, collectively called Homes for Heroes.  By 1926 agricultural law had become openly redistributive in favour of ex-servicemen. County Councils had compulsory purchase powers to requisition land they could let as smallholdings.  Ex-servicemen were the preferred tenants.  The tenant could then buy the land and could ask the Council to lend them money to fund the purchase as a mortgage.  The Council could not refuse without the Minister of Agriculture's permission.
  In 1919 the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food were merged to form the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, which later became the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF).  MAFF was in turn the predecessor of DEFRA.
caption: Ivel Tractor in Ploughing Demonstration, England, 1905
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