Agricultural growth in a cold climate: the case of Iceland in 1800–1850

During the first half of the nineteenth-century Iceland experienced a steady increase in exports. New products were sought after for export by Danish merchants and the peasant farming community responded by increasing the production of the relevant products. The whole period from 1800 to 1850 saw a continuing increase in the exports of sheep products and shark liver oil, which had a common origin in peasant farming production. This period contrasts with the eighteenth century when there was no corresponding growth in exports. The level of exports in the eighteenth century remained overall much the same except during periods of dearth, when it fell. Traditionally the beginning of the modernisation of Icelandic society is dated to around 1880–1910. However, it could be argued that increasing exports of sheep products and shark liver oil after 1800 saw a clear break with the eighteenth-century pattern and that the period should be taken into consideration as being the origin period of economic modernisation in Iceland. This article discusses questions the exclusion not only of the role of peasant farming in the modernisation narrative of Iceland, but also of the Copenhagen merchant houses that organised the goods export from Iceland after 1800.