ABSTRACT
The perception that the English countryside is a product of ‘hoe agriculture’ is enduring; a concept which the organisers of the opening scene of the 2012 London Olympic Games called ‘Green and Pleasant’ (Boyle, 2012). On entry to the Olympic Stadium in East London, the audience saw a scene that represented a traditional and idyllic view, complete with meadows, fields and rivers, and featuring farmers tilling the soil, while real farmyard animals grazed – including 12 horses, three cows, two goats, ten chickens, ten ducks, nine geese, 70 sheep and three sheep dogs. The scene changed, to represent the Industrial Revolution, but the pageant offered few clues to suggest how farming achieved this transformation, from the idyllic panorama of ‘hoe agriculture’, to feeding the masses toiling in the factories – other than by rolling up the turf.
