The Grape Phylloxera Plague as a Natural Experiment: The Upkeep of Vineyards in Catalonia (Spain), 1858–1935

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact in Catalonia of the grape Phylloxera plague in Europe (1865-90). A statistical model is used to analyse the economic resilience of 35 districts in Catalonia to this external ecological and economic shock, and to explain why districts in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona resumed growing wine grapes after the plague, in contrast to districts in Girona and Lleida provinces. The opportunity cost of labour, the demand pull of Barcelona's commercial growth, and the agro-climatic suitability of land for growing grapes are used to explain the differing capacities of districts to endure the Phylloxera plague in Catalonia.a ehr_271 39..61 JEL categories: N53, N54, Q17, Q54, Q56, R14, R40

Vine-growing in Catalonia: the main agricultural change underlying the earliest industrialization in Mediterranean Europe (1720–1939)

“…Within this spectrum, an optimal population density for viticulture seems to have been between 25 and 65 inhabitants per km 2 (Badia-Miró et al, 2010), a range that fits the upper threshold for a rain-fed agricultural economy established by (Boserup, 1981). Only an urbanindustrial economy could host higher population densities, as was the case in the industrializing districts of the Barcelona province.…”

“…Catalonia produced and sold these kinds of cheap liquors and wines oriented toward a massive elastic demand, able to carry out a deep transformative process in the regional economy with low entry barriers This export-led spread of new vineyards started at the end of the 17 th century, when the Dutch trade connected the Western Mediterranean coast with the emerging Atlantic economy (Torras, 1996;Valls-Junyent, 2003), and increased during the 18 th and 19 th centuries until the Phylloxera Plague, which initially fostered new plantations from 1867 onwards before ravaging all Catalan vines from 1879 to 1890. In 1858 there were 115,454 hectares of vineyards in the province of Barcelona, which accounted for 51 per cent of farmland to which some additional 16,000 hectares were added until the Phylloxera crisis (Badia-Miró et al, 2010). Vineyards were planted through an almost-emphyteutic contract called rabassa morta (as the sharecropping was meant to come to an end when two-thirds of the vines had died), being offered by the landowners to small growers with little or no land of their own (Vilar, 1962;Giralt, 1965;Balcells, 1980;Carmona and Simpson, 1999;Colomé, 2000;Garrabou et al, 2000;Badia-Miró et al, 2010).…”

“…In 1858 there were 115,454 hectares of vineyards in the province of Barcelona, which accounted for 51 per cent of farmland to which some additional 16,000 hectares were added until the Phylloxera crisis (Badia-Miró et al, 2010). Vineyards were planted through an almost-emphyteutic contract called rabassa morta (as the sharecropping was meant to come to an end when two-thirds of the vines had died), being offered by the landowners to small growers with little or no land of their own (Vilar, 1962;Giralt, 1965;Balcells, 1980;Carmona and Simpson, 1999;Colomé, 2000;Garrabou et al, 2000;Badia-Miró et al, 2010). …”

“…In other words, we are assuming an agency-oriented explanation of a historical process of land-use change fostered by the opening and closure of an inner vine-planting frontier. Source: Our own, based in (Garrabou et al, 2009;Badia-Miró et al, 2010).…”

“…While agro-climatic endowments are first-nature factors, the dynamic interaction between the other variables becomes a set of second-nature drivers-included timedistances to the nearest seaport that we take as a proxy for the Smithian market-pulling force (Badia-Miró et al, 2010). What really matters is the combination between them in a dynamic process that entails the emergence of feedback loops (like the one that turned into Malthusian an initially Boserupian relationship between population growth and land-use change).…”