Nuevos paradigmas agrarios: una aproximación a los fundamentos teóricos de la “soberanía alimentaria”

This paper summarizes the major issues that make up the paradigm of “food sovereignty”. After a thorough review of the available literature on the websites of organizations related to the movement (Vía Campesina, GRAIN, and Veterinarios sin Fronteras), the paper outlines their key proposals within a broader theoretical context and discusses their joint consistency. The exposition connects with several ongoing debates in agrarian history.En este trabajo se realiza una síntesis sobre los principales planteamientos que componen el paradigma de la “soberanía alimentaria”. A partir de una revisión exhaustiva de las publicaciones disponibles en las páginas web de las organizaciones afines al movimiento (Vía Campesina, GRAIN y Veterinarios Sin Fronteras) se integran sus propuestas fundamentales dentro de un contexto teórico amplio y se discute su coherencia conjunta. La discusión enlaza con algunos debates abiertos recientemente en la historia agraria

Ellen Hillbom y Patrick Svensson (eds.), Agricultural Transformation in a Global History Perspective, Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge, 2013, 342 pp.

qw

The determinants of world wheat trade, 1963-2010: A gravity equation approach

The international configuration of the world wheat trade has undergone significant transformations over the past fifty years. The volume of total wheat trade has increased fivefold, new exporting leaders have appeared and a large import market has emerged in less developed countries. The aim of this paper is to identify the main drivers of those changing patterns. For that purpose, we estimated a gravity equation based on data for bilateral trade flows. Information on the wheat trade was obtained from the UN-COMTRADE database (2014). We also accessed other sources to include explanatory variables such as gross domestic product (GDP) of the exporting and importing countries, GDP per capita, wheat production, different measures of cultural distance and proximity, current trade agreements, etc. The results are discussed and interpreted using a cliometric approachLa configuración internacional del comercio de trigo ha experimentado grandes transformaciones durante los últimos cincuenta años. El volumen total de trigo comerciado internacionalmente se ha multiplicado por cinco, han aparecido nuevos líderes exportadores y un gran mercado de importación ha aparecido en los países menos desarrollados. El objetivo de este artículo es identificar los determinantes principales de todos estos cambios. Para ello, se ha estimado un modelo de gravedad basado en datos de flujos bilaterales de comercio. La información comercial se ha obtenido de UN-COMTRADE (2014) y se ha hecho uso de otras fuentes para incorporar variables explicativas tales como el producto interior bruto (PIB) tanto de los países exportadores como de los importadores, el PIB per capita, la producción nacional de trigo, diferentes medidas de distancia y proximidad cultural o los acuerdos comerciales vigentes. Los resultados obtenidos se discuten siguiendo un enfoque cliométrico

Tierra, trabajo y reforma agraria en la Segunda República española (1931-1936): algunas consideraciones críticas

El enfoque habitual de la reforma agraria tiende a ser negativo, algo que la misma brevedad del régimen republicano y su violenta interrupción tienden a favorecer. En este texto se analiza primero la tesis del desarrollo de un mercado activo y muy eficiente de las reformas liberales decimonónicas frente a la ineficiencia y contradicciones de la reforma agraria del siglo xx. En la segunda parte, la crítica historiográfica se centra en las recientes investigaciones que atribuyen a la política laboral, inaugurada por los socialistas en 1931, la principal causa de la conflictividad social e, incluso, la responsabilidad en la derechización del pequeño y mediano campesino. Nuestro propósito es defender la viabilidad de la reforma agraria y hacer comprensible que el desarrollo de una reforma laboral favorable a los trabajadores del campo tuviera diversos costes de adaptación al principio. Entre ellos no fue despreciable la hostilidad de los grandes labradores a planteamientos de negociación colectiva que sintonizaban con la institucionalización de las políticas sociales de otros países.The brief existence of the Second Republic and its violent end tend to favor the usual negative view of land reform. This article analyzes the perceptions of inefficiency and contradictory effects of the twentieth-century agr icultural reform, in contrast with the thesis of an active and extremely efficient market following the liberal refor ms of the nineteenth century. The second part of the paper focuses on recent historiographical research that considers the main cause of pre-Civil War social unrest to have been the labor polic y launched by the Socialists in 1931, which was also seen as a decisive factor in the swing towards the right of mid- and small-scale far mers. This article defends the viability of an agricultural reform that proved beneficial for the average farm worker. The initial costs of adaptation to the reform are explained, along with the hostility of Spain’s large-scale farmers to collective bargaining, an approach which had been institutionalized elsewhere through social policies

Twists and turns of land reform in Latin America: From predatory to intermediate states?

[EN] Land reform has significantly evolved over time in Latin America. In the early decades of the 20th century, the ‘agrarian question’ involved different national paths of agrarian capitalism and their contributions to industrialization. Later in the century, agriculture played a secondary role, while market-led reforms were implemented from the early 1990s in the region. The agrarian question is now related to a new range of global and national inequalities, whereas the land problem remains unresolved. This paper deals with the role of the state and social dynamics in understanding the twists and turns of Latin America's land reforms from the 1900s to the Global Era

The agricultural productivity gap: A global vision

[EN] Productivity in agriculture tends to grow slower than in other sectors. This is a stylized fact that has resulted in a persistent productivity gap, generalized over time and across countries. This paper explores the evolution of this gap from an international perspective, identifying patterns in both developed and developing countries. Empirical regularities are discussed in the light of a literature review on the causes of the gap and its socioeconomic effects. Reflections on the nature of the productivity gap often merge with considerations on its social implications and on the policies that should be implemented to deal with it. We refer to this wider political economy issue as the ‘farm problem’, and argue that it has not been given a satisfactory solution, neither in rich nor in developing countries. Although in some industrialized countries the discharging of the countryside has acted as a major source of convergence, there has not been a general reduction in the productivity gap between agricultura and the rest of the economy worldwide, nor are there compelling reasons to assume that this will happen in the future

Past and present land reform in Cuba (1959–2020): from peasant collectivisation to re-peasantisation and beyond

[EN] Cuba is a paradigmatic case where the term and concept of the peasantry remains of lived importance. Cuban peasants had a significant role in the past as they did return to the political agenda after the Revolution with particular emphasis under Raul Castro’s administration. However, the Cuban case has not been significantly explored from a long-term perspective that connects the old debates and dimensions of land reforms under developmentalist states to the new agrarian questions in the global era. Based on secondary sources, semi-structured interviews and updated data on land structures, this article explores the long-term process of land reform in Cuba

The economic determinants of crime: Santiago de Chile 2001-2009

This paper analyses crime in Santiago de Chile over the last decade. Firstly, we perform a descriptive analysis and then we present an empirical analysis in which murders and robberies are explained taking into account several socioeconomic variables. Murders are mainly committed by men in the most densely populated municipalities and in those with more people without basic education completed. On the contrary, the vast majority of robberies occur in rich municipalities, where the increased police presence is not enough to compensate the effect of structural variables such as income inequality.En este artículo se analiza el fenómeno de la delincuencia en Santiago de Chile a lo largo de la última década. En primer lugar, se realiza un análisis descriptivo –composición y tendencias en el nivel de criminalidad, percepción social de la delincuencia y situación de Chile en el mundo– y, a continuación, se efectúa un análisis empírico en el que las categorías de homicidio y robo con fuerza son explicadas a partir de una batería de variables socioeconómicas. Los homicidios son mayoritariamente cometidos por hombres en las comunas más densamente pobladas y en aquellas con mayor déficit educacional. Por el contrario, la gran mayoría de los robos se produce en las comunas ricas, donde la mayor presencia policial no permite compensar la incidencia de condicionantes estructurales como la desigualdad de ingresos./n

Breaking the misery wheel? Fertility control, social mobility, and biological well-being in rural Spain (1835–1959)

Abstract Fertility control strategies became widespread in rural Spain through the twentieth century: a significant number of parents decided to reduce their marital fertility once the advantages of control strategies became widely known. This paper explores the impact of those practices on children through a comparative study of the heights and occupations of grandparents, parents, and children. We analyze more than 1,200 individuals from three different generations born between 1835 and 1959 in 14 rural Spanish villages, studying whether the advantages associated with fertility control were maintained over time favoring a better family status or whether they were diluted in the next generation. The largest increases in height were among children whose parents controlled their fertility by stopping having children before the mother's 36th birthday. However, it does not seem that this increase in biological well-being was accompanied by major episodes of upward social mobility