Conclusions

The growing integration of the Atlantic economy from the 1870s set off changes which by the interwar period had radically altered European agriculture and the role of the state in guaranteeing food security. In Western Europe, international trade led to falling land prices and rising real wageswages, encouraging landowners to sell their estates, often to their tenants. By contrast, the new trade opportunities benefitted large cereal farmers in Eastern Europe until many of these also lost their farms following the post-war land reforms.