A Biophysical Approach to the Industrialization of Spanish Agricultura from an Applied History Point of View

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of two research studies carried out over several years on the evolution of Spanish agriculture and the change it has undergone towards an industrialized agricultural model. The first research project attempted to analyze the changes that have taken place since the beginning of the 20th century from a biophysical point of view, using the methodology of social metabolism applied to the specificity of agriculture and an agroecological approach. The second research, which sought to understand aspects of this evolution that historical sources do not provide, consisted of a field experiment lasting several years in which the performance of traditional wheat varieties was compared with modern ones. The findings of both investigations question whether the process of industrialization and the consequent application of Green Revolution technologies led to a significant increase in the yields per unit area of the main crops. The increase in the volume of food production is associated with changes in the morphology of cultivated plants and the concentration of the most fertile land, rather than with an increase in the net primary productivity of these plants. The results of the field experiment confirm these conclusions and show that traditional cultivars were no less productive than modern ones when the whole plant is considered and that it is therefore not possible to compare crop yields, in this case of wheat, on the basis of the grain produced alone. These results should call into question the positive narrative that still prevails in historiography about the industrialization of agriculture.