ABSTRACT
In Europe, beginning with the French Revolution, land reform in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took various paths, some less violent than others. In Denmark, there was a peaceful transition from bondage to small independent farmers. Peasants obtained ownership of their tenancies with the help of state funds channelled through a land bank. Social reforms, particularly in education and farm cooperatives, were accompanied by agrarian change, stimulated by the collapse of grain prices due to cheap cereal imports from the New World. This in turn provoked a conversion from grain to dairy production on small family farms.
