RHN 87/2016 | Call
Organiser: Richard Hoyle (University of Reading)
11-14 September 2017, Leuven, Belgium
Panel at the Rural History 2017 Conference:
The international grain trade in European markets, c.1750–c.1870
Two of the most familiar characteristics of Europe in the century after 1750 are the enormous increase in population in the first stages of industrialisation and the uneven economic development that appeared. Whilst much attention has been paid to the stimulus that population growth and industrialisation gave to domestic production and a variety of forms of improvement, there has been less interest in how international and interregional trade coped with the increase in demand in the century before Europe was overwhelmed with American grain.
This call for papers asks whether anyone is interested in joining in a discussion of these strains and adaptions broadly speaking between 1750 and 1870. Possible subjects might include the development of arable agriculture in areas not normally associated today with corn growing to feed the developing north European industrial markets (for instance Ireland, southern Sweden, even India) and equally importantly, the labour relations which emerged in these areas; the shift of traditional arable districts into new agricultural activities in the face of competition, the introduction of new crops (for instance maize [Indian corn]), the emergence of the trade in flour and meal, the organisation and governmental regulation of the trade, the development of infrastructure to cope with new trade flows (investment in ports, shipping, warehousing, milling and latterly railways), the early development of the transatlantic trade.
Suggestions to r.w.hoyle@reading.ac.uk