Agricultural Sustainability and Open-Field Farming in England, c.1650–1830

Abstract

Recent debates about modern farming have come to be couched in the terminology of sustainable agriculture, a concept originally developed in respect of international post-World War Two farming, and especially in developing countries. In this paper we ask whether there is a historical dimension to the sustainability question and, in particular, whether by recasting the approach to the long-term development of agriculture it is possible to develop a new view of the manner in which farming has changed through time. We look at open-field farming where it dominated the agriculture of 17th and 18th century England. We show how collective community action had developed over many centuries to protect scarce land resources, and how pressures upon these resources through changing economic and demographic conditions inspired communities to develop and promote sustainable methods of husbandry and management. We demonstrate this world of sustainability through its maintenance of the ecological integrity of the land resource, the economic climate in which it operated, and the equitable ownership and decision-making processes that kept it in place. We also show that eventually the ecological integrity was put under mounting economic pressure arising from demographic forces, and also the external pressures arising from war. In particular we show how such pressures compromised the equitable ownership and access to land resources.