The change from horses and other beasts of burden began in North America in the first half of the 20th century. Tractors and other engine powered machines only really started on a big scale in Europe after 1945. In the developing world it has been slowly developing and even now there are many millions of animals still at work. In places like China and India, change is now very rapid as millions of workers leave the villages for jobs in the city.
However, a move back to animal power, especially in the West is impossible. Even if we could breed the millions of horses needed, we would also need millions of skilled men to work with them. But, in any case, productivity would go down terribly. We now have huge tractors that can deal with the toughest conditions and harvesting machines that just could not be adapted for horse power. But the biggest problem would be feeding the animals. Phasing out work horses has been one of the main factors that has allowed the earth to support so many people. Around 30% of the land was needed to grow the hay, oats and other food needed by the millions of horses used in farming, transport and the army. In the West at least, this land all became available to grow food for human consumption.
We certainly cannot go back to horses and we now know that if fossil fuels become scarce, it would be much more efficient to grow biodiesel to power machines than to grow food for horses.
It is important, though, that the production of biofuels doesn’t add to the other looming problems of human food supply. This is discussed in the book Famine in the West.
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