Technical and Environmental Change in Spain: Agrarian Underdevelopment or “European Dragon”?

Abstract

The belittling view of Spanish agriculture, the main source of employment until 1950, was a constant reference in the socioeconomic analyses carried out until the end of last century. This became one of the clichés that nourished the Hispanic inferiority complex, to which writers like Joaquin Costa contributed. The revision of agrarian history has helped to correct the image of social and economic underdevelopment in two ways. Firstly, the better knowledge of the technical innovation processes. Secondly, the environmental and biological limits the Spanish agricultural activity suffered. The latter statement is also useful to underline the risks of productivism after the destruction and redirection of the innovation systems by the Franco regime, when the opportunities for farming development offered by the Republican agricultural reform disappeared