Success from Climate, Techniques or Land Management?
For Centuries Western Europe has taken care of it’s farmland better than most places in the world.
One of the main reasons for it’s success is it’s climate with it’s gentle rainfall and long growing seasons. Plus much of the farmland being not too hilly.
Shrub hedges and/or stone walls such as Cornish hedges were also built around fields which in a literal sense – prevented erosion because the topsoil had nowhere to go. The hedges also provided ecosystem and a home for beneficials to do their job.
But perhaps further than a favorable region or a set of techniques that made Western European farms work so well is the social context of how the land was taken care of.
Instead of splitting the land up to the heirs when the elders passed, the land was mainly put into primogeniture. Or left to the eldest son. This prevented the land from being managed or sold to too many people. It also made it easier to pass down knowledge of land care to each successive generation.
