What kind of magic? It's struck me that to get a modern non-agrarian society, you need not just good yields but some sort of automated harvest. China and India had high yield per acre relative to the US, but if it takes the same effort/food to harvest, that just gives you more farmers per acre, not many more people per farmer.
Weather control or "repel pests" or generic 'bless crops' give more reliable food production, and more yield per seed, which does help, but don't replace the combine harvester.
(Though now I'm thinking of a semi-urban society where the population migrates out to the countryside in the fall to help with the harvest.)
(Twelve Kingdoms reversed that; a magical China that was mostly agrarian, but in winter people moved from farm-adjacent villages to more central towns, giving a part-time urban experience.)
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yati
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Date: 2017-08-30 01:31 pm (UTC)Weather control or "repel pests" or generic 'bless crops' give more reliable food production, and more yield per seed, which does help, but don't replace the combine harvester.
(Though now I'm thinking of a semi-urban society where the population migrates out to the countryside in the fall to help with the harvest.)
(Twelve Kingdoms reversed that; a magical China that was mostly agrarian, but in winter people moved from farm-adjacent villages to more central towns, giving a part-time urban experience.)