Wheat varieties and technological change in Europe, 19th and 20th centuries: New issues in economic history

This article: a) analyzes the evolution of biological innovations in wheat varieties from the mid 19(th) to the end of 20(th) century in Britain, France, Spain and Italy, and b) shows that the analysis of technological changes in agriculture provides a better understanding of the evolution of grain yields in these countries. The article also shows the effect of four key variables in these innovations: scientific advances in the field of biology, alongside environmental, institutional and technological factors. In addition, it provides a new indicator for the evolution of these innovations, which can be particularly useful to better determine the distribution of short-stemmed and semidwarf wheats over time: wheat production per weight unit of hay harvested.