Rethinking Technical Change
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has generously supported two Kings College London (KCL) PhD projects to develop a more critical historical narrative of agricultural technical change between 1920 and 1970.
These Collaborative Doctoral Award students are based partly at the MERL and are jointly supervised by Professor Abigail Woods (KCL) and Dr Ollie Douglas (The MERL).
Their research aims to challenge the idea of a linear path in which new technologies are adopted and old ones abandoned, with each student focussing on a different aspect of farm practice. The first explores complex choices linked to draught animal power and mechanised power. The second investigates the use of pharmaceuticals and other approaches by livestock farmers.