Robert Blakewell
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Robert Blakewell (1725-17??) was an agriculturalist who increased the productivity of livestock by selective breeding and improved feeding techniques.
Born in Leicestershire, England, the son of a farm manager, he travelled as a young man across the country, studying farming methods and, when he inherited his father’s management duties in 1760 he began to put the new farming techniques into practice.
Blakewell separated the sexes of farmed animals to control reproduction and selectively bred animals to encourage desirable traits. He allowed land to be more intensively farmed by increasing manure application, irrigation and controlled flooding.
His methods moved animal husbandry towards increasing production of food rather than the traditional areas such as wool production for sheep and strength in cattle.
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