Abstract
For a large extent of historiography, the history of Spanish agriculture during the twentieth century is a story of success. However, this narrative has been built on monetary analysis, and it does not usually take into account the effects on rural society and agroecosystems. The aim of this paper is to analyze what has happened from a biophysical perspective to ascertain whether transformations linked with industrialization of agriculture have also been positive. For this, we have integrated the results—some unpublished and others already published—of a broader research project about different aspects of food production from a biophysical perspective in Spain, applying methodologies pertaining to the Social Metabolism. Our research seeks to provide a new narrative, emerging through the consideration of environmental aspects of the process, providing a more complex vision of the process of industrialization in European agriculture. The results show that the industrialization of Spanish agriculture has brought about profound changes in land uses and in the functionality of the biomass produced, increasing pressure on croplands and, paradoxically, facilitating the abandonment of an important proportion of pasture and croplands. This has led to the subordination of a very significant portion of Spanish agroecosystems to the feed demands of intensive livestock farming. This process has been based on the injection of large quantities of external energy. Agricultural production has undergone significant growth since the 1960s, but this has been insufficient to deal with the growing demand created by the change in the Spanish diet and the increasing trend to focus on livestock farming. The process of globalization has allowed both roles to be reconciled, although in recent decades Spain has accentuated its role as a net importer of biomass from a biophysical perspective, with very significant impacts on third party countries, particularly in Latin America. From a biophysical perspective, the industrialization of Spanish agriculture has entailed negative consequences that threaten the sustainability of Spanish agroecosystems and also negatively affect the sustainability of other territories.
Highlights
Following decades of enquiry into the causes of the supposed “backwardness” of Spanish agriculture [1], historiography has in recent years focused on analyzing the contribution it makes to economic growth [2,3,4]
Since our aim is not to assess the nutritional content of diet, but rather the transformation experienced by the agrarian sector, we are interested in “gross” quantities of foods destined to human consumption directly or indirectly, through livestock
The contribution made by plant biomass to the Spanish diet contrasts with the spectacular growth of animal biomass: between 1960 and 2000, consumption more than doubled, up to 827 g/capita/day, it moderated over the past decade
Summary
Following decades of enquiry into the causes of the supposed “backwardness” of Spanish agriculture [1], historiography has in recent years focused on analyzing the contribution it makes to economic growth [2,3,4]. Even the contribution made by the agrarian sector to other economic sectors seems to have been positive, expressed through the decline of the real exchange rate, at least from the mid-1960s onwards [6]. The agrarian sector has been integrated vertically into a broader economic structure that is responsible for the transformation and supply of foodstuffs, providing raw materials. This contribution is considered to be even more significant than the economic results achieved by the sector itself. This entire process of industrialization has brought about some very significant changes within the sector itself—economic, social and environmental—which cannot be considered in the same light [7,8]
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