Beginning in the 1970's, Europe underwent what has been called a new agricultural "revolution." Ownerships were consolidated, especially in Britain but also in France and Germany. As a result, owners of the larger holdings were able to invest in modern agricultural machinery. Now, 44 percent of the world's tractors are owned in Europe, mostly in France, Italy, and Poland. This has helped make European agriculture so productive that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Europe's best farms are as efficient as the best in the United States.
European farmers vastly increased their yields in the second half of the twentieth century. Britain's wheat output is up 60 percent from what it was immediately after World War II, the growth in output is nearly as great in France. In general, European agricultural productivity grew 5 percent a year between 1960 and 1999. Productivity grew much less in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. This is partly because rainfall there varies so widely from year to year.
In 1979 the EU moved from being an importer of cereal grains to an exporter, as it did in 1975 for sugar and in 1976 for wine. Since 1960, the number of workers employed in agriculture has dropped by 50 percent, although the agricultural output remains the same or even higher. Authorities in Britain have estimated that farms there are at their most efficient when they employ no more than two or three people a far cry from the hundreds of people who worked Europe's farms for subsistence wages in earlier centuries.
See also: Crops
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