The agricultural (agrarian) revolution began in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Prior to that, most farmers lived in villages and walked out to common fields to tend crops mainly for their own consumption, using the same techniques that were employed for millennia. However, some new inventions, such as themoldboard plow; new ideas, such as rotating crops rather than letting fields lie fallow; and new laws, such as the Enclosure Act, which led to the consolidation and private ownership of land, led to a revolution in agricultural production.
In the American colonies, there were large regional differences in agriculture. The colonies were an agrarian society in which more than ninety percent of the population were farmers. In therocky soil of New England, most people had small family farms, and they often had common grazing land for their livestock on their village greens. In the fertile Southern There are a number of social factors causing food shortages. The rate of population increase is higher than increase in food production. The world is consuming more than it is producing, leading to decline in food stock and storage level and increased food prices due to soaring demand a midst low supply (ACC, 2008). Increased population has led to clearing of agricultural land for human settlement reducing agricultural production (Kamdor, 2007). Overcrowding of population in a given place results in urbanization of previously rich agricultural fields. Destruction of forests for human settlement, particularly tropical rain forest has led to climatic changes, such as prolonged droughts and desertification. Population increase means more pollution as people use more fuel in cars, industry, domestic cooking. The resultant effect is increased air and water pollution which affect the climate and food production.
Environmental factors have greatly contributed to food shortage. Climatic change has reduced agricultural production. The change in climate is majorly caused by human activities and to some small extent natural activities. Increased combustion of fossil fuels due to increasing population through power plant, motor transport and mining of coal and oil emits green house gases which have continued to affect world climate. Deforestation of tropical forest due to human pressure has changed climatic patterns and rainfall seasons, and led to desertification which cannot support acrop production. Pollution comes in various forms; these forms include air pollution, water pollution and soil pollution. Population pressure has led to overgrazing and deforestation of agricultural lands reducing the size and fertility of agricultural land due to soil erosion. Increased deposits of industrial affluent, farming and soil particles into water bodies have led to water pollution. Land degradation due to increased human activities has impacted negatively on agricultural production (Kamdor, 2007). Natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and prolonged droughts are on the increase and have devastating impacts on food security particularly in developing countries. Drought is the leading cause of food scarcity in the world, as consecutive years of droughts have led to massive crop failures and loss of livestock in the horn of Africa and Central America. Recent floods have rendered many people homeless, destroying crops and animals in parts of India and other several third world nations (Bourke, Allen, and Salisbury, 2000).
