Discussion of agriculture’s contribution to economic development usually begin with a broad

range of possibilities that include: a increase in agricultural output that helped feed the expanding
urban population, the realease of labour to other sectors; the release of capital to other sectors and
the expansion of the home market for manufacturers.

The answer for whether agricultural development promoted or hindered industrialization depends
critically on time period. In my opinion, the agricultural revolution only performed the first two
roles, mostly in 17th century not in 18th century. In addition, it failed to realise the last two roles.
The time lag was explained by the fact that agriculture revolution did not run concurrently with
the industrial revolution but rather precede it.

I should start with what english agriculture did do in promoting the industrializaiton. The
contributlions that agrarian change made to economic development lay in increasing output and
releasing labour to other sectors, although the importance of these developments varied over time
and among regions.

In the seventeenth century, yields and real output and real output per acre increased substantially
in the south midlands. Overton’s investigation of East Anglian probate inventoris points to the
same conclusion for that region. Jackons’s reworking of the aggregate evidence suggests that
between 1660 and 1740 agrucultural output increased at 4.5 – 10 per cent per decade in England
anas a whole. The seventeenth century was therefore probably a time of rising yields and output
in most parts of England. The character of agarian change reversed in the eighteenth century. The
yield growth slackened in the south midlands. And with it the growth in total agricultural output.
Between 1740 and 1790, Jackson’s calculations show agricultural output growing at -2.8 to 2.0
per cent per decade in England as a whole.

In terms of employment, there are two groups of theories that have proposed to explain the transfer
of labour from agriculture to industry. The first supply side theory proposed that labour expelled
from agriculture would automatically be absorbed by industry. According to Fortrey (1663), there
was no problem of labour absorption- everyone who left agriculture became employed in spinning
and weaving wool. The second supply side theory was developed by Arthur Young, who believed
that food production increased faster than farm employment. The population expanded in
proportion to the food supply therefore enlarging the manufacutring workforce. Sir Arthur lewis
propsed a demand –side theory since the growth of industry depended on its demand for labour.
He argues that there was unlimited supply of laobur and there existed many countries that there
are large sectors of the ecnonomy where the marginal productivity of labour is negligible. With
the supply of labour unlimited, industrial enployment depends on industrial demand, which in turn
linked to the rate of capital formation.

According to Robert Allen’s estimation, in south midlands in 1676, almost three-quarters of the
men were full-time farmers or farm labourers. There were so few men that all must have been fully
employed throughout the year. Meanwhile, there were many non-agriculturalists and women being
employed in the harvest seasons. In 1831, half of the male work-force in the south midlands was
still agriucultural. But the total mumber of men in agiruclutre is about twice the number of fulltime
male jobs needed for farming. Therefore, half the agricultural labourers were unemployed for most
of the year. Aside from agriculture, retail manufacutring was the biggest empolyer. This includes
bakers, butchers, talors. Shoemakers as well s carters and other providers of transport services. But
throughout industrial revolution, the employment prospect for women in the rural texile industries,
their biggest empoloyer, were declining in the face of mounting compettion from factories. By the
1830s, jobs like spinning had disappeared. Agiculture resulted in structural unemployment rather
than increased manufacturing output.

Having finished saying what agriculture did, or parcially did, i should preceed to say what
agriculture failed to. Agriculture did not release capital to other sectors, and it did not provide a
home market for manufactures.

There are two ways in which agriculture might have released capital. The first was by reducing its
demand for capital. In fact, the reverse occured in England.While the shift to large farms
economized on draught animals and implements, the conversion of arable to pasture raised herd
sizes, thereby increasing the demand. He resource costs of enclosure boosted the demand for fixed
capital. The combined effects of all of these changes was to raise agicultural capital in the south
midland by 21 percent over the 17th and 18th centuries. The second way agriculture might have
released capital was by increasing savings, the supply of capital. Much of the rental income of
England accrued to a small group of rich landowners who were consequently in a position to save.
However, the landowners were regared as profligate rather than frugal. It was believed that there
was little wealth of rural England found its way into the new industiral enterprises. Thus agarian
change made little, if any contribution to non-agricultural captial formation.

Likewise, English agriculture never provided a bouyant market for manufactures, especially mass
produced goods. Hoskins(1957:310 ) concludeds that ‘farming had been revolutionised since the
early 1600s, but the farmer’s household probably enjoyed little more in the way of comforts adn
amentities in 1820 than their ancestors had in 1620s’. O’ Brien (1985; 133-4) has estimated that
the rise in agrarian incomes in the eithteenth century increased manufacturing sales by 29-44 per
cent while over the same period, the output of manufactured goods increased 470 per cent. By this
reckoning, the contribution of agrarian to industrial growth was negligible.

In conclusion, agrarian change in England to a certain extent, did increase agricultural output and
release labour to other sectors, but it failed to release capital to other factors and provide expanded
home markets to manufactures. In the 17th century, especially, it did lead to an increase in
production, and in the 18th to a release of balour. These changes created the potential to raise GDP.
That potential was realized in the 17th century but not in the 18th.