The Comparative Study Method Of Agricultural Modernization

The agricultural transformation plays a basic role in the process of traditional agriculturalsociety transforming to the modern capitalism society. For in the modernization process ofBritain and France, the development of the agricultural modernization affects the overalldevelopment level of the economy, and even the entire social transformation directly. This paper,on the basic of systematical combing the development course of the British and Frenchagricultural modernization, focuses on the comparative study of the characteristics of theagricultural modernization development, and analyses the causes leading to the difference ofagricultural modernization of the two countries above.Britain and France began their agricultural modernization in the late fifteenth century andthe early sixteenth century respectively. Although their start time is similar, there is a big gapbetween the two countries development process of agricultural modernization. In the emergenceof agricultural capitalism, the development in Britain is much better than that in France. TheFrench agriculture capitalism entered into a long slow development phase after GreatRevolution, while the British agricultural capitalism received its rapid development, andestablished the large-scale farming production system. Although France began to transform intocommercialization agriculture after the middle of the nineteenth century, its development levelof the agricultural capitalism still lagged behind Britain. Generally speaking, the speed ofagricultural modernization development in Britain is faster than that in France, and the level ofdevelopment is also higher than that in France.Besides the difference in the process of agricultural modernization of Britain and France,they also have different characteristics. These mainly reflect in the land ownership structure, theproduction and management, the production and consumption structure, the relationship betweenagriculture and industry, etc. Specifically speaking, Britain established the large land ownershipthrough such as the Bourgeois Revolution and Enclosure Movement. But after FrenchRevolution, France had established small land ownership as the leading land ownership structure,and formed large, medium, and small land ownership coexisting situation. Britain prevailedlarge-scale farming which combined with the large land ownership. France also appearedspecialized ranch after the middle of the nineteenth century, but the small-scale peasant economystill occupied a dominant. In terms of the structure of agricultural production and consumption,British agriculture has the characteristics of open and high degree of commercialization, whilethe French agricultural is relatively closed and has a low degree of commercialization. Therelationship between agriculture and industry in Britain is mutually reinforcing, but Frenchagriculture and industry not only develop unevenly but also restrict mutually.The reasons that cause British and French agricultural modernization having different development process and development characteristics are various. In addition to the reason fromthe structure of agriculture itself, the main reason is from external. These external factors mainlyinclude natural geographical conditions, economic factor, political factors and social culturefactors. It is the combined effects of these factors caused the gap between British and Frenchagricultural modernization. The comparative study of British and French agriculturalmodernization and the analysis of the difference of the two countries could summarize thelessons learned of agricultural development, and provide certain inspiration and reference for thedevelopment and transformation of our countries’ agriculture.