Balances energéticos y usos del suelo en la agricultura catalana: una comparación entre mediados del siglo XIX y finales del siglo XX

Xavier Cussó, Ramón Garrabou, José Ramón Olarieta and Enric Tello
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Xavier Cussó: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Ramón Garrabou: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
José Ramón Olarieta: Universitat de Lleida

Historia Agraria. Revista de Agricultura e Historia Rural, 2006, issue 40, 471-500

Abstract: From the analytical perspective of the social metabolism, this article analyses and compares the ground uses and the energetic assessment derived from the uses of the agrarian systems in five towns of the Catalan area of the Valles in two historical moments. Both illustrate the characteristics and magnitude of the transformations occurred in the Catalan agricultural systems during the last 150 years. The former corresponds to mid-19th century, as a representation of how an advanced organic agriculture worked; the latter, in the late 20th century, represents an industrialized agricultural system where the fossil energy and other inputs external to the system are essential. From the information contained, on the one hand, in the amillaramientos, in the cattle censuses and in the assessing forms available for the towns studied here, and, on the other hand, in the current data of censuses in agriculture, forests, yield and uses of the different products, we have built up the energetic results of the two analysed periods. From these results, all through the 150 years, we have seen how an incredible lost of energetic efficiency and of sustainability of the agricultural systems have occurred in spite of the great increase of productivity per hectare of the different crops and in cattle raising, totally attributed to a change from an advanced organic agriculture to some agricultural systems with a high consumption of fossil fuel in the shape of fuel, synthesis fertiliser and pesticides, and especially to the huge weight of the cattle activity, completely developed outside the territory.

Keywords: : energy balance; social metabolism; advanced organic agriculture; industrialized agriculture; energetic efficiency; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N53 N54 Q15 Q16 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Working Paper: Balances energéticos y uso del suelo en la agricultura catalana: una comparación entre mediados del siglo XIX y finales del siglo XX (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:seh:journl:y:2006:i:40:m:december:p:471-500

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