Abstract:In the context of a relatively scarce water country, the article analyzes the changes in 50 years in the water footprint (WF) in Spain evaluating its sustainability. For that purpose, firstly we make use of the regional information of the water footprints and crop production to estimate the WF of production over the 50 provinces in Spain, looking at the variation between the years 1955 and 2005-2010. The detail in the information of crops (more than 150 of them) statistics allows us to examine the types and origin of changes (in volume produced, shifts towards more or less water intensive crops). Secondly, we estimate sustainability indicators also at the provincial level, which let us evaluate whether this change has created or incremented the risk of physical and economic water stress. Thirdly, we introduce the economic perspective, providing evidence on the infrastructures built and public sector expenditure, as an approximation to the costs of the increases in WF, particularly meaningful for those water stressed areas. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 5095

This article is the first of its kind to offer a quantitative estimation of the evolution of Latin American agricultural production and productivity between 1950 and 2008. It also uncovers the extent to which the increases in production were due to increases in factors of production or to efficiency gains. Our findings reveal that efficiency gains made a rather modest contribution to the substantial increase in production, although their role became increasingly large over time and were highly significant between 1994 and 2008. Capital was the most important productive factor in explaining increases in output.

The objective of this study is to make a further contribution to the debate on the causes of economic growth in the European continent. It explains why agricultural labour productivity differences did not converge between 1950 and 2005 in Europe. We propose an econometric model, one combining both proximate and fundamental causes of economic growth. The results show that the continuous exit of labour power from the sector, coupled with the increased use of productive factors originating in other sectors of the economy, caused the efficiency of agricultural workers to rise. However, we offer a complete explanation of the role played by institutions and geographical factors. Thus, we detect a direct and inverse relation between membership of the EU and the Communist bloc and the productivity of agricultural labour. In addition, strong support for agriculture affected productivity negatively.

The impact of economic growth on natural resources and the environment constitutes a fundamental topic in current research. In particular, water, a fundamental resource for human beings, has been subject to intense pressure in recent decades. Within this context, this article examines the growth of the blue water footprint of the Spanish wine industry and its environmental impact. In order to do this, we will first calculate the blue water footprint of wine, using a bottom-up methodology. Our methodology introduces certain advances with respect to those usually used. Our results show a very fast increase of the blue water footprint from 1995, which has multiplied six-fold in twenty years with an extreme concentration in the region of Castilla-La Mancha, which accounts for 70% of this increase. The expansion of irrigated vine growing in this region has played a relevant role in the serious problems suffered by its aquifers.

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The aim of this study is to determine whether the Spanish path of agrarian change, between 1950 and 2005, exhibits some features important enough to differentiate it from the common model of developed countries in Western Europe. On the one hand, the Spanish agrarian transformations share the main features which took place in Western Europe: technological innovation, increased production and productivity, loss of importance of the agricultural sector, tight integration with the industrial sector and, finally its high impact on the environment. On the other hand, a series of important peculiarities can be observed in the Spanish agrarian change: strong expansion of intensive livestock farming; importance of increased irrigation to explain the transformation of agriculture; policies that offered very little support to the agricultural sector under a dictatorship that denied a voice to farmers; maintaining a very prominent role in the economy despite its small contribution to GDP. Key-words:Agricultural change, European agriculture, Agricultural policies, European economic history ResumenEl objetivo de este trabajo es comparar el modelo de cambio agrario español entre 1950 y 2005 con el predominante en los países europeos occidentales en el mismo periodo. Nuestras conclusiones ponen de relieve que ambos comparten las mismas características principales: innovación tecnológica, incremento de la producción y la productividad, pérdida de importancia relativa del sector agrario, fuerte integración con el sector industrial y alto impacto medioambiental. Sin embargo, el cambio agrario en España ha tenido una serie de peculiaridades destacadas, como son la fuerte expansión de la ganadería intensiva, la creciente importancia del regadío para explicar las transformaciones agrarias, unas políticas públicas que ofrecieron un escaso apoyo al sector agrario bajo una dictadura que impedía la participación de los agricultores en el diseño de las políticas agrarias y el mantenimiento de un papel destacado del sector a pesar de su pequeña contribución al producto interior bruto Palabras clave: Cambio agrario, agricultura europea, políticas agrarias, historia económica europea JEL CODES: N54, O13, Q18 1

Aim of study: Evaluate the changes in Spanish agricultural production since 1950s in a context of intense transformations in terms of the regional and crop composition.Area of study: Spanish provinces during the second half of the twentieth century.Material and methods: We use index decomposition analysis to evaluate the changes in the value and volume of crop production, as well as the role of product composition and the regional distribution of production.Main results: Spanish agriculture have focused on certain regions in the south or in the east of Spain. Some products like vegetables or fruits have a positive prices and composition effects, encouraging the production in these provinces.Research highlights: We found a ‘double concentration’: Spanish agriculture has increasingly tended to produce high value-added products, such as vegetables, fruit and olive oil. On the other hand, crop production is concentrated in the southern and eastern provinces of Spain.