1.2 Labour Force on the Land
The development from an agricultural to an industrial society
brought changes in qualitative and quantitative terms for
the people working on the land. Urbanization and industrialization
have been causing a reduction in the share of agricultural
population already since the last century, while the absolute
number of agricultural labour force increased until 194B.
This means that the population increase has mainly been absorbed
by the increasing non-agricultural sector, a process which
led to an increase in the demand for food, gave possibilities
of intensifying agriculture by biological-technical progress,
and of increasing agricultural income.
Especially after 1950, the boom in industry and the increasing
non-agricultural income caused an important outmigration so
that agriculture had to further increase the labour productivity,
mainly by capital input in the form of mechanization, in order
to be able to cope with the situation.
The process of migration greatly varied. Often, it was more
a migration from agriculture rather than from the rural region.
Former agriculturists continued to reside in the village where
they had social relations and a plot to build their house
on, if they did not choose to continue operating a small part-time
farm. It was easier to remain in the village in regions where
industry was located right in the rural areas - which is quite
common in Germany. If outmigration as is often the case -
did not take place with the change of generation but in the
course of a small farmer's life, the risk which this change
involved quite often induced the peasant to continue farming.
This allowed him to go back to the old way of life, if life
in the industrial areas did not come up to his expectations.
During this trial period, two important changes took place:
the family usually did not invest in agriculture, with all
the consequences this involved. Secondly, the situation led
to an increased workload for the women and family members
who had to manage the farm. Thus, while on the larger family
farms, over the last two decades, farmers' wives and children
ceased to be farm workers and reduced their workload, on the
smaller farms, the situation was disadvantageous., especially
Remarkable changes took place under sociological aspects.
In the agrarian society, land tenure determined the individual's
status and functions. Nowadays, the inherited status is of
limited importance for the social structure, and the level
of income is the main status-determining factor. But this
is only loosely related to inheritance and the land tenure
situation. While in the agrarian society status determined
personal- relations, agriculture in today's industrial society
has accepted contracts as the factors governing relations
between members of the society. Modernization has waved the
determination of husbandry by customs, i.e., the famous village
opinion, and increased individual control over the production
process. At the same time, this increased chances and risks,
and was soon overcome by new dependencies on markets, integrators,
All these changes have been painful experiences, and not
everybody succeeded. In the long run, incomes have been increasing,
especially for farmhands, but also the general income per
worker in agriculture. But there is a great difference in
income between regions, production systems, and between more
or less successful farmers. Many gave up, and not a few at
the cost of considerable economic and psychological hardships
for the individual himself and for his family.