i was watching one of the dozens of specials about the middle ages and they were talking about how europe began to recover from the dark ages and the plague and all that fun stuff. they went into detail mostly about farming practices and what lead to irish potato famine etc. mostly just rehased stuff. then surprisingly i heard something that i had never heard of before. according to them while the rest of europe had adopted new farming techniques and grew different and more of a variety of crops the french peasants supposedly resisted the new ideas and kept growing the same crops the same way they had been all along. this in part lead to the famines the lead up to the french revolution which apparently didnt effect the rest of europe nearly as much at the time. can anyone confirm this since this is the first ive heard of it? i always like to confirm stuff from the "formerly known as history but now focuses on ghosts and ancient aliens channel"

okay so what exactly are you asking?

First of all, the time in history which you seem to be referencing was much later than the Middle Ages, as you suggested. (by at least 400 years)

I'll assume you are talking about the Irish Potato Famine, since it is a famous historical event.
From what I remember, it wasn't that the Irish refused new methods of agriculture, but they couldn't afford to practice them. Everyone was starving or dying of the potato disease.
The Blight (as it was called) must have been a huge factor in disregarding new methods, since it would have caused the workforce to become very poor and degraded.
I'm sure the geographic isolation also played a factor into the ignorance of new agricultural methods.

Concerning the French Revolution, it had more to do with the political and financial mess that Louis XV had put the country in. Starvation and disease was also a factor in the upset, but the true beginning of the Revolution was a political act, beginning with the storming of the Bastille among other political upsets.
Poor agriculture was surely a factor in the Lower Class upset, this is well known, but again it would seem more likely that they could simply not afford any new techniques, instead of outright opposition towards them.

I'm no expert, and surely probably made a few oversights here, but for the most part I recall my History lessons.

the program was all over the place from the dark ages to the rennasiance. i missed the first part but im assuming it was about medieval farming practices overall.

the irish potato famine happened because they put all their eggs in one basket and everyone grew the same type of potato which apparently is a big no no. that ive heard from several sources including history classes and what not.

the french peasanst resisting new farming techniques was new to me though and as you said ive always heard that is was just the aristocracy mismanaging everything. the show flat out said that the french peasants simply refused to use the new techniques out of pride. im really curious about this now. historical information is always changing and evolving.......hell the history classes ive taken in college last year are vastly different that what i learned in high school ten years ago. i figured someone had released a book or found some diaries from back then recently or what not. i tried googling it but my normally mad googling skills svck tonight for some reason. i dont take anything from the history channel for granted but they put it in the show for some reason. just wish i knew why.