The history of agricultural progress has long been a story of grain production and increased yields, an approach apparently well-suited to an agricultural economy primarily geared to cereal crops and bread-based diets. True, other forms of production were not forgotten.  An abundant literature developed on wine production and on cattle-raising, in regions where they had become specialisations. But these sectors were assigned a relatively secondary place because of the overwhelming importance of cereal production for the basic survival of the population.  This was the broadening context in which Joan Thirsk made her plea for the study of what she described as “alternative agriculture”. By demonstrating the importance of these “marginal” crops in the peasant economy, especially in England, she drew attention to a major historical phenomenon.  For Thirsk, these changes were set off by economic recessions, and the rise of alternative agriculture was strongly correlated with the difficulties of traditional crops, that is, with falling prices and hard times in traditional, mainly cereal-based, agriculture. Against this, Jean-Pierre Poussou has put forward the view that the rise of alternative agriculture is unrelated to periods of depression, and that its importance increased much more often during phases of economic prosperity and rising prices.

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