Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

We present a case study about the problem of the introduction of American crops at the beginning of the 19th century in the mountains of León. In an environmental key, we will emphasize the adaptation of the metabolic-social set to the new seeds, and its influence on agroecological balances.

Paper long abstract:

We propose to analyze in a historical-environmental key a case study whose objective is the introduction of potato crops in an agroecological system in which livestock and cereal predominated, and which at the same time was managed by the local political body, the common of neighbors. In 1820, 23 neighbors of the 40 that made up the council of Caboalles de Abajo committed to planting potatoes on their land in 3 areas of the town's terrace: the tuber was already known in those regions, but the provisions of these neighbors also threatened the set of easements associated with the rest of the land and access to the nearby mountains.

We will use the methodology of Social Metabolism. With the nexus approach, we will integrate the processes of appropriation, transformation, accumulation and excretion of natural resources, from the stock of materials necessary to release ecosystem services, under an organic energy obtaining regime. The concept of “fit” proposed by Karl Polanyi will allow us to locate the information obtained in a specific institutional framework. Agroecology will help us introduce into the analysis the dimension of “land” within the mountain community, especially in its conflictive aspect: we will focus on the levels of congruence between basic assets of a biophysical nature (land according to a specific use, livestock), and the social ones (work, its organization and the available exploitation capital), which in a peasant context are dedicated to its maintenance extended over time in line with the reproducibility of the agricultural population.