Crop Production in the East of Scotland - SASA

Crop Production in the East of Scotlandpeople in Scotland living in towns largerthan 10,000 inhabitants was 65.5% at the1991 census.Once these changes had started, there wasno going back, and the future of Scottishagriculture could lie only in intensification.However, the topography of the East ofScotland, with the arable areas constitutinga coastal strip, bounded inland by relativelyhigh hills, did not lend itself to “prairie”cropping. There are also considerableareas of “difficult soils”, owing to texture orwater relations, where the inclusion of agrass crop in the rotation is necessary tomaintain the soil structure; and there areproblems of slope and stoniness. This hasensured that, in contrast to England andcontinental Europe, mixed farming,integrated with the livestock enterprises ofadjacent upland areas, has persisted up totoday in most parts of the study area.Finally, the abrupt and fairly completechange from subsistence to commercialcropping in the eighteenth century, hasmeant that Scottish farmers have been incompetition with those in other countriesever since. They benefitted from theincrease in demand for food from theexpanding cities and from the generalboom conditions during the NapoleonicWars, and suffered from the subsequentcollapse. Over the last two centuries, withthe repeal of the Corn Laws (1846) andincreasing supplies of cheap food from theBritish Empire, there has been moredepression than boom, except in the waryears of the twentieth century. Although, ingeneral, the years under the CommonAgricultural Policy of the EC/EU have beenones of prosperity and development, thelate ‘nineties have seen a sharp fall in farmincomes, initiated by the collapse inlivestock sectors and problems associatedwith currency exchange rates (see Table1.5).One important feature of modern times hasbeen the scientific leadership generated inScotland. The first chair in agriculture inthe English-speaking world was establishedin Edinburgh over 200 years ago and,particularly in the twentieth century, theorganisations listed in Appendix 1 havecontributed strongly to advances inagriculture, food, the environment andbiotechnology, not only for Scotland andthe UK, but also on the international stage.Suggested reading for further historicbackground:Devine T.M. (1999). The Transformation ofRural Scotland. Edinburgh: John DonaldPublishers;Devine T.M. (1999). The Scottish Nation1700-2000. London: Allen Lane;Fenton A. (1976). Scottish Country Life.Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers;Sanderson M.H.B (1982). Scottish RuralSociety in the 16th Century. Edinburgh:John Donald Publishers;Whittington G.W. & Whyte I. (1983). AnHistorical Geography of Scotland. London:Academic Press;Whyte I. (1979). Agriculture and Society inSeventeenth Century Scotland. Edinburgh:John Donald Publishers;Wightman A. (1996). Who Owns Scotland.Edinburgh: Canongate.Many issues in relation to land tenure andrural populations can be explored bycomparing the experiences of thecharacters in Growth of the Soil (KnutHamsun) with those in Sunset Song (LewisGrassic Gibbon) and Butcher’s Broom (NeilGunn).14