Explain major features of global agricultural economy that had taken shape towards the close of 19th century.
By the end of the 19th century, a global agricultural economy had taken shape. It has the following features : There were changes in labour movement patterns, capital flows, ecologies and technology. The food requirement was met not from a nearby village but from places that were thousands of miles away. For example, the British demand for more food was met by expansion of food production in Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia. The work in a field was not done by a peasant tilling his own land but by an agricultural worker working on a large farm which was a forest earlier. Agricultural produce was transported by railways and ships. Low paid workers from other distant places such as Southern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean were employed in the ships and railways. In addition to food, the cultivation of cotton also expanded worldwide to fulfil the needs of the British textile mills. Regional specialisation developed so rapidly that between 1820 and 1914 the world trade multiplied 25 to 40 times. Nearly 60 percent of this trade was of agricultural products such as wheat and cotton and mineral such as coal.
