Surviving the agricultural periphery: Climatic resilience and livestock production in pre-industrial central Scandinavia

Abstract

This article examines the climatic resilience of farms in Jämtland and Västernorrland in northern Sweden during the crucial period of agricultural transformation in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular focus on livestock production. Until recently, detailed studies of the impact of climatic change and variability on livestock-oriented regions has been lacking. This article presents a large dataset of livestock production, comprising almost 30 000 tithe observations, the vast majority at the farm level, spanning the period 1582 to 1858, with a particular focus on the peak period of the agricultural transformation around 1770–1840. Food from livestock, mainly milk and its derivative products, is shown to have constituted almost three-quarters of overall food production in the region. Livestock numbers fluctuated not only with household size but also with barley harvests, demonstrating the inherent interdependence of livestock and crops in the mixed farming system of the region. The primary climatic factor affecting livestock numbers from year to year was the temperature during the growing season of the preceding year. This influence predominantly stemmed from the impact of growing season temperatures on meadow growth and arable crop yields. During the period 1770–1840, grain harvest failures only had a marginal effect on the size of subsequent livestock herds, and in several years of harvest failure, livestock numbers could be maintained, demonstrating that livestock could act as a one-year buffer to climatic shocks. After 1773, agricultural improvements helped to mitigate the effects of slumps in agricultural production on subsequent mortality levels.