As food prices started to rise, it became profitable for farmers, both large and small, to invest in agricultural technologies that would improve crop yields. Those higher prices for grain probably resulted from population growth, which in turn was encouraged by increased production of food crops. A number of these agricultural improvements came from the Dutch, who had chronic problems feeding themselves, and discovered that planting different kinds of crops, like clover, that added nitrogen to the soil and could be used to feed livestock at the same time, meant that more fields could be used at once. This increased productivity eventually brought down prices, and this encouraged further innovation in order to increase yield to make up for the drop in prices. Lower food prices had an added benefit. Since food cost less and wages in England remained high, workers would have more disposable income, which meant that if there were consumer goods available, they would be consumed, which incentivized people to make consumer goods more efficiently, and therefore more cheaply. You can see how this positive feedback loop leads to more food and more stuff, culminating in a world where people have so much stuff that we must rent space to store it, and so much food that obesity has become a bigger killer than starvation.