Agricultural Technology Case Study

The well-known British revolution in the 18th century introduced sustainable agricultural practices through the introduction of technology. Ultimately, the third agricultural revolution that took place in the 20th century has introduced modern farming methods and improved technology to increase production. Farmers are the driving force behind the agricultural sector and have a direct impact on the state of agriculture in a country. This case study will focus on the revolutions made throughout history to improve agriculture. The case study will put specific interest on the role of technology in the development of agriculture from pre-historic practices to modern practices. The British agricultural revolution that took place between the 17th and the 19th century is the most renowned agricultural revolution (Barker, 2009). The introduction of technology to agriculture took place during this period and has grown exponentially in modern time.

The rapid growth of population in Britain during this time is attributed to the significant increase in agricultural productivity. The first form of technology was the introduction of the plough. Although the plough traces its roots back to the Chinese, the current design of the plough that is still used in many developing countries was crafted by the Dutch. Farmers and Technology Through each of these revolutions, technology has played various roles and changed the lives of farmers. Farmers in pre-historic time were unable to produce large amounts of food for export. In addition, they were unable to diversify the type of crops they grew as they depended on crops that were already indigenous to the area they settled. This brought about barter trade or a market system where people from different regions would meet and exchange agricultural produce.

The tools used during this period were crude hand-held tools which could not be used to put large areas of land under agriculture. Through their work, the scientists were able to introduce significant changes such as chemical fertilizer to replace natural fertilizer as well as new crop strains that would significantly increase crop yield. The modern world has a key focus on digital technology and the same has filtered into agriculture (Ekekwe, 2017). Technology has allowed farmers to collect more data about various agricultural elements and design systems that have seen them improve their farming methods. Storage and transportation have also been affected positively as farmers acquire new techniques of monitoring their crop. As more land goes to urbanization and climate patterns become more adverse, farmers have been able to rely on technology to predict these changes and avert catastrophes.