More than energy transformations: a historical transition from organic to industrialized farm systems in a Mediterranean village (Les Oluges, Catalonia, 1860–1959–1999)

Díez, Lucía; Segura, Xavier Cussó i; Padró, Roc; Marco, Inés; Cattaneo, Claudio; Olarieta, José Ramón; Garrabou, Ramon; Aragay, Enric Tello

doi:10.1080/14735903.2018.1520382

Cited by 14 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…6c). If traditionally and presently conventional energy analysis is used to measure our increasing dependency on fossil energy, agroecological energy analysis is particularly dynamic in assessing historical evolution (Soto et al 2016;Tello et al 2016;Díez et al 2018;Marco et al 2018;Guzmán et al 2018;Infante-Amate and Picado 2018;Harchaoui and Chatzimpiros 2019). Indeed, this approach assesses socio-metabolic and landscape evolution and configuration through its energetic framework enhancing energy return into the agroecosystem understudy.…”

Section: Aim Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Energetic assessment of the agricultural production system. A review

Hercher-Pasteur

Loiseau

Sinfort

et al. 2020

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Energy holds a key role in farm systems. Cultivation is based on the conversion of solar energy into biomass of interest. Fossil energy allows mechanized and high-yield agricultural production system, but has a strong impact on climate change, and its supply is compromised in the next decades. Energy flows stand between two worlds: while energy is a strategic component of the economy, it is also a thermodynamic state variable for describing ecosystems. This situation reemphasizes the need for energy flow analysis in farm systems. There is a great variety in the approaches used to compute energy flows at farm scales. Yet, their main characteristics and the ways they handle farm sustainability issues need to be clarified. This review identifies ten kinds of energetic approaches, i.e., (i) conventional energy analysis, (ii) pluri-energy analysis, (iii) agroecological energy analysis, (iv) exergy analysis, (v) cumulative exergy consumption, (vi) extended exergy account, (vii) cumulative exergy extraction from the natural environment, (viii) eco-exergy, (ix) cosmic exergy analysis, and (x) emergy assessment. These approaches are analyzed through key features to discuss their ability to address resources' efficiency issues and identify promising outcomes for energy assessment of farms. This analysis emphasizes the lack of clear definition of system boundaries in farm-scale studies. In addition, most of the studies mainly focus on socio-economic flows through a sectoral perspective. Yet, internal biomass flows that play a role in maintaining agroecosystem functionality can also be considered according to a circular/systemic perspective. Then, integration of soil organic matter in the energy balance leads to significant changes in energy efficiency evaluation playing a function of biotic energy storage in the farm system. Hence, some recommendations are provided to perform an exhaustive energetic assessment of farm systems as well as future lines of research to be investigated.

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Section: Aim Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Energetic assessment of the agricultural production system. A review

Hercher-Pasteur

Loiseau

Sinfort

et al. 2020

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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“…At present, agricultural systems face severe environmental, economic, social, and institutional challenges [1][2][3]. These societal challenges are a result of human development, increasing agricultural intensification, specialization, and mechanization [4][5][6], with the outcome of very productive agricultural systems but also systems with severe environmental, climatic and social impacts [7][8][9][10]. Apparently, the modernization and industrialization of farming systems have radically changed the patterns of agricultural production and human consumption, as well as how we as humans perceive agri-food systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The particularly great economic success of the conversion of Danish agriculture to animal production can be found in the design and distribution of the cooperative dairy movement [17]. Since the industrial revolution, innovations such as modern machinery and inorganic fertilizers have helped to reduce the labor force, or even appropriated human labor and draft animals [6,18,19], but at the same time resulted in a dependency between human activity and fossil energy use to maintain agricultural systems [18][19][20]. These system changes came along with broader societal change, altogether constituting a new phase of Danish social ecology [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A vast amount of studies about reconstructing past agricultural farming systems based on historical documents exists, such as maps, notebooks, statistics, and tax records [16,18,[25][26][27][28]. Furthermore, there are numerous studies of changes in agro-ecosystems over time [6,[29][30][31][32]. These examples of "reconstructing" and comparing past agricultural systems and landscapes with current farming systems shows that the approach of adopting historical perspectives highlights important changes in agricultural systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These examples of "reconstructing" and comparing past agricultural systems and landscapes with current farming systems shows that the approach of adopting historical perspectives highlights important changes in agricultural systems. Such investigations on a regional scale allows for exploring changes in spatial and socio-economic dynamics over time, while also illuminating key determinants for spatial and temporal agro-environmental change [6,27,33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Historical Transition of a Farming System towards Industrialization: A Danish Agricultural Case Study Comparing Sustainability in the 1840s and 2019

2021

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A Danish pre-industrial farming system is reconstructed and compared to its modern industrialized farming system equivalent to evaluate agricultural performance in a sustainability perspective. The investigated Danish farm system and its contributing elements have undergone significant transformations. The intensity of contemporary agriculture shows that high productivity levels have been achieved by increasing the input of energy using modern machinery. At the same time, the energy efficiency (calculations based on energetic indicators) diminishes over time as the degree of dependence on fossil fuels increases. The results from this study show significant changes in the farming system, specifically inputs from agricultural land use, livestock, and energy systems. From being highly circular, the system changed to being a clear linear farming system with highly increased productivity but less efficient at the same time, questioning the relationship between productivity and efficiency and resource utilization in modern farming systems. Through utilizing an agroecological historical approach by comparing system performance over time, the results offer opportunities to explore how agricultural farming systems evolve over time and help to describe the complexity of the system level in a sustainability perspective.

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Understanding the rationale and advantages of a traditional Mediterranean intercropping system in the nineteenth century

Díez Sanjuán,

Migliorini

2023

Agric Hum Values

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Traditional agricultural systems in Mediterranean Europe were characterised by diversity and multifunctionality, and polycultures played a fundamental role in them. Some of these farm systems and the traditional agricultural practices linked to them have now largely disappeared, but they are increasingly recognised as a valuable source of agroecological knowledge. In this study, we seek to recover the long-lost experience from a traditional Mediterranean intercropping system that combined the cultivation of vines and cereals. Using local historical resources available for a Catalan village for the second half of the nineteenth century, we compare the characteristics and functioning of intercropping and monocultures of vines and cereals using socioeconomic and agrarian metabolism indicators, and discuss the advantages of the traditional intercropping system as an adaptation to the productive limitations of the agroecosystem (particularly in terms of soil quality and productivity, and availability of labour and draft force), but also as a peasant economy strategy that responded to a multifunctional balancing rationale. This way, this research contributes to recovering the knowledge and experience of a long-lasting traditional crop system that had been used until the second half of the twentieth century, and provides an understanding of the rationale and advantages of traditional Mediterranean crop systems beyond productivity and profit maximisation strategies.

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More than energy transformations: a historical transition from organic to industrialized farm systems in a Mediterranean village (Les Oluges, Catalonia, 1860–1959–1999)

Cited by 14 publications

References 59 publications

Energetic assessment of the agricultural production system. A review

Energetic assessment of the agricultural production system. A review

Historical Transition of a Farming System towards Industrialization: A Danish Agricultural Case Study Comparing Sustainability in the 1840s and 2019

Understanding the rationale and advantages of a traditional Mediterranean intercropping system in the nineteenth century

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