How did we get from local pig slaughter to factory farming; from horse power to the vast combine harvester; from a dairy industry based on hand milking to one based on homogenised milk; from locally produced fruit to the destruction of orchards and, from hill farming to Foot and Mouth Disease?

That is ‘The Story of Agriculture’, in the 20th century. The story of a silent revolution in the way in which the nation’s food was produced, told from the inside by farmers, labourers and villagers, and illustrated brilliantly with the films they made at the time, with contributions from writers and historians such as Professors Richard Ellis and Jim Dunwell and Jeremy Burchardt from Reading University; Alun Howkins from Sussex and one of the leading writers on the 20th Century rural landscape, Howard Newby.

The Story of Agriculture is told through the revolution in the production of the nation’s four staple foodstuffs: cereals, milk, meat and fruit and vegetables.

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