The history of agriculture in Scotland includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, from the prehistoric era to the present day.
Scotland's good arable and pastoral land is found mostly in the south and east of the country. Heavy rainfall, wind and salt spray, in combination with thin soil and overgrazing, made most of the western islands treeless. The terrain often made internal land communication difficult, encouraging a coastal network. In the Neolithic period, from around 6,000 years ago, there is evidence of permanent settlements and farming. The two main sources of food were grain and cow milk. From the Bronze Age, arable land spread at the expense of forest. From the Iron Age, there were hill forts in southern Scotland associated with cultivation ridges and terraces and the fertile plains were already densely exploited for agriculture. During the period of Roman occupation of Britain there was re-growth of trees indicating a reduction in agriculture.
The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration, resulting in more land becoming unproductive. Self-sufficient farms were based around a single homestead or a small cluster of homes. Oats and barley were grown more than other grains, and cattle were the most important domesticated animal. From c. 1150 to 1300, warm dry summers and less severe winters allowed cultivation at greater heights and made land more productive. The system of infield and outfield agriculture may have been introduced with feudalism from the twelfth century. By the late Medieval period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile. These were settlements of a handful of families that jointly farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough teams, organised in run rigs. Most ploughing was done with a heavy wooden plough with an iron coulter, pulled by oxen. The rural economy boomed in the thirteenth century and in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death was still buoyant, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century.
As feudal distinctions declined in the early modern era, the major landholding orders, or heritors, were the lairds and yeomen. Others with property rights included husbandmen and free tenants. Many young people left home to become domestic and agricultural servants. The early modern era also saw the impact of the Little Ice Age, necessitating the shipping of large quantities of grain from the Baltic. Under the Commonwealth, the country was relatively highly taxed, but gained access to English markets. After the Restoration customs duties with England were re-established. Economic conditions were generally favourable, as landowners promoted better tillage and cattle-raising. The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw a slump, followed the failed harvests of the "seven ill years", but these shortages would be the last of their kind. After the Union of 1707 there was a conscious attempt to improve agriculture among the gentry and nobility. Enclosure displaced the run rig system and free pasture. The resulting Lowland Clearances saw hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from central and southern Scotland forcibly removed. The later Highland Clearances saw the displacement of much of the population of the Highlands as lands were enclosed for sheep farming. Those that remained many were now crofters, living on very small, rented farms with indefinite tenure, dependent on kelping, fishing, spinning of linen and military service. Scotland suffered its last major subsistence crisis when the potato blight reached the Highlands in 1846.
In the twentieth century Scottish agriculture became susceptible to world markets. There were dramatic price rises in the First World War, but a slump in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by more rises in the Second World War. In 1947 annual price reviews were introduced in an attempt to stabilise the market. There was a drive in UK agriculture to greater production until the late 1970s, resulting in intensive farming and increasing mechanisation. The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1972. Some sectors became viable only with subsidies. A series of reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy from the 1990s attempted to control over-production, limit incentives for intensive farming and mitigate environmental damage. A dual farm structure emerged with large commercial farms and small pluralised and diversified holdings.
Geography and climate
Scotland is roughly half the size by area of England and Wales, but has approximately the same amount of coastline. It has only between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good pastoral land (under above sea level), most of which is located in the south and east. This made marginal pastoral farming and fishing the key factors in the pre-modern economy.E. Gemmill and N. J. Mayhew, Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: a Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), , pp. 8–10. Its east Atlantic position causes very heavy rainfall: at the end of the twentieth century about per year in the east and over in the west. This encouraged the spread of blanket peat bog, the acidity of which, combined with high levels of wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made agriculture and internal communication difficult.C. Harvie, Scotland: a Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), , pp. 10–11.
Prehistory
At times during the last interglacial period (130,000–70,000 BCE) Europe had a climate warmer than it is today, and early humans may have made their way to Scotland, though archaeologists have found no traces of this. Glaciers then scoured their way across most of Britain, and only after the ice retreated did Scotland again become habitable, around 9600 BCE.F. Pryor, Britain B.C.: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans (London: Harper Collins, 2003), , p. 99. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer encampments formed the first known settlements, and archaeologists have dated an encampment near Biggar to around 8500 BCE. Numerous other sites found around Scotland build up a picture of highly mobile boat-using people making tools from bone, stone and antlers.P. J. Ashmore, Neolithic and Bronze Age Scotland: an Authoritative and Lively Account of an Enigmatic Period of Scottish Prehistory (London: Batsford, 2003), , p. 19. The oldest house for which there is evidence in Britain is the oval structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period, about 8240 BCE.R. Gray, "Bridge works uncover nation's oldest house", Herald Scotland, 18 November 2012, retrieved 7 December 2012.
In the Neolithic period, from around 6,000 years ago, there is evidence of permanent settlements and farming. This includes the well-preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray, dating from around 3800 BCEI. Maxwell, "A History of Scotland's Masonry Construction" in P. Wilson, ed., Building with Scottish Stone (Arcamedia, 2005), , p. 19. and the village of similar houses at Skara Brae on West Mainland, Orkney from about 500 years later.Pryor, Britain B.C., pp. 98–104 and 246–50. Evidence of prehistoric farming includes small plots of improved land, with simple stone boundaries. In Shetland these have been found under peat and on the mainland they are associated with cairnfields (piles of rocks that have been cleared from fields).I. D. Whyte, "Economy: primary sector: 1 Agriculture to 1770s", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 206–7. Archaeological evidence of pollen, pottery, settlements and human remains indicates that the two main sources of food were grain and cow milk, in a pattern that probably remained constant until the High Middle Ages.A. Fenton, "Diet", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 167–70. There is also some limited evidence of the cultivation of flax from this period.J. T. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (ABC-CLIO, 2006), , p. 25.
From the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2000 BCE, extensive analyses of Black Loch in Fife indicate that arable land spread at the expense of forest.T. C. Smout, R. MacDonald and F. Watson, A History of the Native Woodlands of Scotland 1500–1920 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2nd edn., 2007), , p. 34. From the Iron Age, beginning in the seventh century BCE, as elsewhere in Europe, hill forts were first introduced.A. Moffat, Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), , p. 182. Some of these forts in southern Scotland are associated with cultivation ridges and terraces. Over 400 souterrains, small underground constructions, have been discovered in Scotland, many of them in the south-east, and although few have been dated, those that have suggest a construction date in the second or third centuries CE. They are usually found close to settlements (whose timber frames are much less well-preserved) and may have been for storing perishable agricultural products.R. Miket, "The souterrains of Skye" in B. B. Smith and I. Banks, eds, In the Shadow of the Brochs (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), , pp. 77–110. Aerial photography reveals extensive prehistoric field systems that underlie existing boundaries in some Lowland areas, suggesting that the fertile plains were already densely exploited for agriculture. During the period of Roman occupation of what is now northern England, and occasional advances into Southern Scotland, there was re-growth of birch, oak and hazel for five centuries, suggesting that the Roman invasions had a negative impact on the native population and the extent of agriculture.
Middle Ages
The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration, with a drop in temperature and an increase in rainfall, resulting in more land becoming unproductive.P. Fouracre and R. McKitterick, eds, The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 500-c. 700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), , p. 234. With a lack of significant transport links and wider markets, most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. Limited archaeological evidence indicates that throughout Northern Britain farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family, with kinship relationships likely to be common among neighbouring houses and settlements, reflecting the partition of land through inheritance.A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba: 789 – 1070 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , pp. 17–20. The climate was more favourable for oats and barley than for corn.A. MacQuarrie, Medieval Scotland: Kinship and Nation (Thrupp: Sutton, 2004), , pp. 136–40. The evidence of bones indicates that cattle were by far the most important domesticated animal, followed by pigs, sheep and goats, while domesticated fowl were very rare.K. J. Edwards and I. Ralston, Scotland after the Ice Age: Environment, Archaeology and History, 8000 BC – AD 1000 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), , p. 230.