Agricultural History Review, Volume 51 Part 1 (2003), p. 130

In the agricultural history of Germany, as in that of Britain, the study of the interaction between agriculture and the natural environment is still only an emerging area of interest. On that ground alone a volume actually devoted to the theme of agriculture and ecology in Westphalia, a region of north-western Germany, would be most welcome. Unfortunately, very little space is given here to that subject. Some of the introductory essays to the lavishly illustrated tome reflect older preoccupations in the discipline from a national perspective. Rolf Gehrmann looks at demographic theory and agricultural development and Rita Gudermann is concerned with the location and impact of a supposed ‘take-off’ in nineteenth-century German agriculture. Karl Ditt on twentieth-century agriculture, agricultural policy and environmental protection and Jürgen Büschenfeld on the adoption of pesticides/herbicides since 1945 barely mention Westphalia. As a conclusion, Verena Winiwarter presents a general ‘model’ of the changing interaction of agricultural change, nature and rural society that is little more than a synthesized general depiction of the process. Norwich Büsse offers the national policy of the Green Party (Die Grüne) on agriculture and the environment.

There are several contributions on aspects of Westphalian agriculture: Friedrich Becks on the spatial development of agriculture from the 1970s, with superficial reference to the ecological consequences; Hansjörg Küster’s very short overview of the impact of agricultural change on vegetation and landscape; Willi Obermann on the consolidation of holdings from the 1950s, ostensibly from the viewpoint of the nature protectionist; Burkhard Theine’s essay on agricultural mechanization from the 1920s – which is otherwise little more than a disaggregation of the Westphalian from the national statistics; Paul Walter on land consolidation (of the medieval strips) in Westphalia, principally the legislation of 1953 and 1976 – with little space devoted to the environmental impact; Michael Kopsidis’s application to Westphalia of Thünens ‘isolated state’ theory of proximity to the market as the determinant of the degree of intensification in agriculture – which merely mentions the natural environment; and Bernd Tenbergen’s longer-term analysis of the period from the early nineteenth century, with local examples and including landscape change.

The really outstanding contributions to the volume are among the regional and local studies. Bernward Selter provides a superb analysis of the nineteenth-century transformation of the forest economy of south-west Westphalia. This involved the replacement to a large extent of mixed deciduous forested areas, which were integral elements of the agricultural economy, by monocultural coniferous forests of trees of uniform height, that came paradoxically to be protected under nature conservation laws. Georg Fertig contributes an excellent detailed study of the division of the commons in one village (although he is more concerned with the demographic impact rather than the direct environmental consequences). Similarly, Volker Lünnemann presents what is essentially a demographic study of two villages in different soil areas, which contrasts their reactions to the hunger crises of the period 1800 to 1850.

Some of the local studies are only indirectly concerned with agriculture. They include the well-researched essay on the development of sewage farms by Andreas Dix. Unlike those of the cities, where the impulse to create them stemmed only from a rapidly growing volume of effluent, in rural Westphalia they were inspired by the urge to fertilize land and were associated with water meadows. Now almost all closed down, this early effort in recycling waste has left a legacy of land polluted by heavy metals. Curriculum change from the 1920s at Westphalian agricultural colleges, which also functioned as farm advisory centres, is covered in Peter Exner’s contribution. The teaching programme in the Nazi era was characterized by a strange combination of emphasis upon farm technology and the ‘museumalization’ (Mu sealisierung) of peasant culture, with more time devoted to paramilitary sports and shooting practice. (The acquisition of milking machines was discouraged by the Nazis on ideological grounds – the sexual division of labour – and for employment-creation reasons.) After 1945, the time left vacant in the curriculum was principally occupied by commercial subjects (farm management and accounting). The contribution of Gefion Apple and Jan Carstensen is a description of the open-air museum at Detmold. Ulich Bangert focuses on nature conservation in respect of an area of less than seven square kilometres. Ulrich Harteisen’s otherwise interesting study of the Senne area of east Westphalia has little to report on agriculture, let alone its impact on the environment. An area of extremely marginal sandy heath, historically the habitat of the hardy semi-feral Senne breed of horses, it was otherwise used by peasants of surrounding villages as a source of heather litter for cowsheds and some extensive grazing. From the later nineteenth century most of it became an army exercise ground. Agricultural change is irrelevant in Matthias Frese’s otherwise interesting essay on tourism and the landscape in Westphalia, which is actually almost entirely an historical account of the promotion of tourism in the area. Similarly with Rolf Spittler’s offering, supposedly on the demands of landscape-oriented tourism on the future of agriculture in Westphalia. The obvious point is made that tourists are not attracted by modern intensive agriculture, especially on the generally flat landscape of Westphalia. Otherwise, there is no discussion of the impact of tourism or agriculture on the environment and more material refers to the island of Rügen in the Baltic than to Westphalia. The joint contribution by Ulrich Häpke and Jörge Haafke is on nature conservation in the Ruhr, the industrial and coal mining region partly in Westphalia, where retreating agriculture merely serves as the conservationist backdrop to the devastation inflicted by industrial pollution. The same applies with the 132 the agricultural contribution by Ulrike Gilhaus on the withdrawal of the state between 1870 and 1900 from the administrative protection of agriculture from industrial pollution, ostensibly in Westphalia but actually in the Siegerland and Sauerland districts.

In spite of the obvious faults of the volume, the relevant essays do represent contributions to a new direction in German agricultural history, towards the study of the environmental and ecological impact of agricultural change in the past. The pity is that so many of the essays are so influenced by the old and now somewhat antiquated paradigms of climacterics, legislative enactments, land occupancy laws and customs, and Malthusianism.