Note that crop rotation itself (2 course/3 course) is much, much older. And Wikipedia claims it was first done in the 16th century in what now is Belgium.
Actually, there are a bunch of things presented as 'new' in the article while I read nothing which I never read before, and many of the solutions bascialy come down to 'do it as our ancestors did it' so it's not all that new either. The vast scale of it though is new. And the rigid economic system attached to it.
2 course / 3 course used to rely on fallow periods, IIRC, though it's been more than 20 years since I covered this in school :)
What's so significant about all this stuff is that this agrarian revolution lead to greater food productivity, increasing populations, and started to increase the labour pool available for other tasks. This stuff basically kick started the eventual industrial revolution. That's part of why it's so strange to see it coming around again
the point about Norfolk four course rotation is that, like the article suggests, it keeps the ground covered in plants at all times so preventing the dustbowl.
Note that crop rotation itself (2 course/3 course) is much, much older. And Wikipedia claims it was first done in the 16th century in what now is Belgium.
Actually, there are a bunch of things presented as 'new' in the article while I read nothing which I never read before, and many of the solutions bascialy come down to 'do it as our ancestors did it' so it's not all that new either. The vast scale of it though is new. And the rigid economic system attached to it.