Class 9 SST Peasant and Farmers Notes and NCERT Solutions Poonam Dua

Peasant and Farmers

Summary

The Coming of Modern Agriculture in England

· The countryside was open in large parts of England; each villager was allocated  strips of 

land for cultivation at the beginning of each year.

· All villagers had access to the common land where they pastured their cows, collected 

fuel wood and hunted.

· Rich farmers were eager to improve their sheep breeds and ensure good feed for them

by controlling large areas of land in compact blocks. They began dividing and enclosing 

common land and building hedges around their holdings for separating it from that of 

the others.

· They drove out villagers who had small cottages on the commons, and prevented the 

poor from entering the enclosed fields.

· The British Parliament passed 4,000 Acts legalizing these enclosures.

v New Demands for Grain

· In the late eighteenth century, land was enclosed for grain production because of 

various reasons:

Ø The rapid expansion of the British population and urban migration increased the 

demand for food grains.

Ø The prices of food grains increased in England owing to disrupted trade and the 

import of food grains from Europe, while France was at war with England.

· The landowners enclosed their lands and enlarged the area under grain cultivation and 

pressurised the Parliament to pass the Enclosure Acts.

v The Age of Enclosures

· Grain production grew quickly.

· The food-grain production increased because the landlords sliced up pasturelands, 

carved up open fields, cut up forest commons, took over marshes, and turned large 

areas into agricultural fields.

· Enclosures became necessary for making long-term investments on land and plan crop 

rotation for improving the soil; and also allow the richer landowners to expand land 

under their control and produce more for the market.v Impact of Enclosures on the Poor

· The poor no longer enjoyed access to the enclosed property of the landowners.

· They were displaced from the land and were deprived of their customary rights.

· Labourers had to live with their landowners throughout the year, doing a variety of odd 

jobs.

· Work became insecure, employment uncertain and income unstable.

v Agriculture in America  

· Till the 1780s, white American settlements were confined to a narrow strip of coastal 

land in East America.

· There were various nomadic Native American groups who lived by hunting, gathering, 

fishing and cultivating.

· Early 20

th

century: White Americans had moved westward and established control up to 

the west coast, displacing local tribes and converting entire landscape into different 

agricultural belts.

· The American Indians were forced to sign treaties, give up their land and move 

westward by the US government.

· The settlers slashed and burnt forests, pulled out the stumps, cleared the land for 

cultivation, built log cabins in the forest clearings, erected fences around the fields, 

ploughed and sowed the land.

· When the soil was impoverished and exhausted in one place, the migrants moved 

further west, for exploring new lands and raise a new crop.

v The Wheat Farmers

· There was a dramatic expansion of wheat production in the USA because–

Ø The urban population of the USA was growing and the export market was 

becoming bigger.

Ø The spread of the railways made it easier to transport the grain from the wheatgrowing regions to the eastern coast for export.

Ø During the First World War Russian supplies of wheat were cut off and the USA 

had to feed Europe.

v The Coming of New Technology

· The settlers modified their implements for meeting their requirements in new lands and 

habitats.

· They devised a variety of new ploughs and started using tractors and disk ploughs for

clearing vast stretches for wheat cultivation.

· 1831: Cyrus McCormick invented the first mechanical reaper for harvesting crops.· Early 20

th

century: Most of the farmers were using combined harvesters for cutting the 

standing crops. 

v Affects of Mechanisation on the Poor

· Mechanisation brought misery for the poor.

· They had to leave their farms and look for jobs elsewhere as they were unable to repay 

the loans to the banks.

· Wheat prices fell and export markets collapsed; thus leading to the Great Agrarian 

Depression of the 1930s.

v Dust Bowl

· 1930: Dust storms blew over the Southern plains and damaged livestock, cattle, houses 

and lives.

· When wheat cultivation had expanded the farmers recklessly uprooted all vegetation, 

and tractors had overturned the soil, and broken the sod into dust.

v The Indian Farmer and Opium Production

· A regular system of land revenue, increase in revenue rates, and expansion of area 

under cultivation was practiced by the British.

· The peasants and pastoralists faced problems as cultivation expanded and the area under 

forests and pastures declined.

· By the end of the 19

th

century, India was producing indigo, opium, sugarcane, cotton, 

jute, wheat and several other crops for export to Europe and England.

· The cultivators were unwilling to cultivate opium for a variety of reasons–

Ø Large volumes of opium flowed out of Bengal ports to the Chinese market.

Ø Opium needed the best land which meant that food crops had to be grown on 

lower quality of land. This adversely affected the food grain production.

Ø No other crop could be grown on the land on which opium had been grown.

Ø Opium plant was delicate and cultivators had to carefully nurture it.

Ø The price of the government paid to the cultivators for the opium they produced 

was very low.

v A taste for Tea: The Trade with China

· The Confucian rulers of China, the Manchus, were suspicious of all foreign merchants.

· The western merchants began an illegal trade of opium with China.

· The English cultivated a taste for Chinese tea, while the Chinese became addicted to 

opium.                                                                                                              

· The returns from the sale of opium financed the tea purchases in China.

v How Were Unwilling Cultivators Made to Produce Opium?· The government opium agents provided money to the village headmen, who in turn 

gave it to the cultivators.

· By taking loan, the cultivator was forced to grow opium on a specified area of land and 

hand over the produce to the agents once the crop had been harvested.

· The prices given to the peasants were so low that the peasants began agitating for higher 

prices and refused to take advances.

· By 1773: The British government in Bengal had established a monopoly in opium trade.

· The local traders were offering much higher prices to peasants and exporting opium to 

China.

AMEND EDUCATION ACADEMY Peasants and FarmerQUESTIONS OF NCERT BOOK

1.Explain briefly what the open field system meant to rural people in eighteenth-century England. Look at the system from the point of view of:

A rich farmer    A labourer  A peasant woman
(a) A rich farmer:
As the prices of wool increased, rich farmers wanted to increase its production. Therefore, they began to privatise the best parts of the common land and open fields for themselves. This was done to ensure that their sheep would get good fodder. They also began to drive out poorer farmers, disallowing them from using common land for grazing.

(b) A labourer:
For the poor labourers, the common lands were essential for survival. They used to live with landowners, doing a number of odd jobs for them in return for board and lodging and a small pay. However, when the open field system began to disappear, labourers were paid wages and employed only at harvest time. This left them at the mercy of rich landowners and farmers.

(c) A peasant woman:
For peasant women, the open field system was a good way of community living wherein everything was shared between the rich and the poor. They would use the common lands for grazing their cattle, gathering fruits and collecting firewood. However, all these activities were negatively affected because of the disappearance of open fields.

2. Explain briefly the factors which led to the enclosures in England.
The factors that led to the enclosures in England were primarily profit-based. When wool prices rose in the sixteenth century, rich farmers began to enclose the best pastures of common lands for their own cattle. Later, in the mid-eighteenth century, the British Parliament passed 4000 Acts legalising these enclosures which had earlier been an individual, and not state, enterprise. Enclosures came into being to enhance grain production since England’s population was booming. Also, industrialisation and war needs made foodgrain prices soar, making it necessary to take steps to increase its production. They were also important for long-term investments on land and to plan crop rotations for maintaining soil fertility.

3. Why were threshing machines opposed by the poor in England?
Threshing machines were opposed by the poor in England because they decreased the employment opportunities of workmen during harvest-time. Previously, labourers had lived with the landowners, doing odd jobs around the farm. Later, they were hired on wages and only during harvest-time. However, with the coming of the threshing machine, most of these labourers were left unemployed and without a means of livelihood. Hence, they opposed this industrial tool.

4. Who was Captain Swing? What did the name symbolise or represent?
Captain Swing was the name appended to some of the threatening letters during the rural English protests against the use of threshing machines and landowners’ reluctance to employ labourers. The movement had an imaginary leader with a multiple-use name. His name was chosen, in a form of morbid humour, to echo the prisons that the rebels who got involved in this uprising would have to face.

5. What was the impact of the westward expansion of settlers in the USA?
The westward expansion of settlers in the USA led to a complete annihilation of American Indians who were pushed westwards, down the Mississippi river, and then further west beyond that. They fought back, but were defeated; their villages were burnt and cattle destroyed. Also, with the cultivation of land for agricultural purposes, all grass and trees were razed. This led to terrible dust storms and blizzards in the 1930s, causing much death and destruction.

6. What were the advantages and disadvantages of the use of mechanical harvesting machines in the USA?
The mechanical harvesting machines were helpful for clearing large tracts of land, breaking up soil, removing grass and preparing the ground for cultivation in a short span of time and with less human labour. However, for the poor, the machines were a bane. Mechanisation reduced labour demand and many were rendered unemployed. Also, the dust storms of the 1930s could in a way be traced back to the zealous large-scale ploughing of land with the help of these advanced machines. These storms were a result of the presence of vast tracts of ploughed land, with no grass to hold back mud.

7. What lessons can we draw from the conversion of the countryside in the USA from a bread basket to a dust bowl?
There are many useful ecological lessons that we can draw from the conversion of the countryside in the USA from a bread basket to a dust bowl. It teaches us the value of environment protection and safe use of natural resources. It serves as a warning sign against the exploitative use of land for commercial purposes only. There should be a governmental check on how much land is cultivated. The droughts and the dust storms that struck in the 1930s rendered production futile as wheat and corn were rapidly turned into animal fodder due to over-production. It also ruined the landscape.

8. Write a paragraph on why the British insisted on farmers growing opium in India.
The British insisted on farmers growing opium in India because of a trade deal with China. Tea became extremely popular in England, and by 1830, over 30 million pounds of tea was being imported from China. The rulers of China, the Manchus were unfriendly towards foreign merchants and their goods. Hence, there was nothing that England could offer to the Chinese in exchange for tea, except money. Doing so was a loss to the British treasury. Opium was used in Chinese medicine, but was banned for use due to its addictive qualities. The British started an illegal opium trade, and by 1839, there were an estimated 12 million opium smokers in China. All the supplied opium came from India and it formed an easy, cheap way to pay for the tea imported from China.

9. Why were Indian farmers reluctant to grow opium?
Indian farmers were reluctant to grow opium because it required extremely fertile soil and was a difficult crop to grow, requiring more care. It took up the fields that could be utilised for growing pulses, and the time taken in opium production meant that the farmers could pay little or no attention to the other crops. Added to this problem was the problem of low sale price of opium. It was thus unprofitable to be grown.