Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:25:27.879Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economic Growth and Biological Innovation: The Development of the European Dairy Sector, 1865–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

ISMAEL HERNÁNDEZ ADELL  and
JOSEP PUJOL-ANDREU
ISMAEL HERNÁNDEZ ADELL
Affiliation:
Escola Superior de Ciències Socials i de l'Empresa Tecnocampus - UPF, 32 Avenue Ernest Lluch, 08302 Mataró, [email protected]
JOSEP PUJOL-ANDREU
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Campus de la UAB, Plaza Cívica, s/n, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In this article we discuss an aspect of economic growth that has not been the subject of much consideration in economic and agrarian history to date: the effect of biological innovations on farming development between the mid nineteenth century and the 1930s. We have focused on dairy farming for two reasons. Firstly, dairy farming played a relevant economic role in a number of European regions during this period. Secondly, one of its products, liquid milk, was probably the most significant food during the early stages of the European nutrition transition. We present new statistical data for the evolution of dairy farming in different Northern European countries as well as Spain, and evaluate the impact of cattle population and milk yields in each case. We also link milk yields and the availability of fodder, but special attention is paid to the breeds kept and techniques for their improvement. The article shows that cattle improvement played a significant role in Central and Northern Europe from the mid nineteenth century, but that this was not the case in Spain. Improvement through inbreeding was soon discarded in Spain, absorbent crossbreeding failed, and the sector became dependent on foreign imports of bulls and cows, first from Switzerland and later from Holland. By taking these factors into consideration we can better understand why the dairy sector in Mediterranean Europe did not really begin until the late nineteenth century and why it stagnated in the wake of the First World War.

Keywords

Agrarian historyAgrarian developmentFood historyBiological innovationsCattleEuropeSpain
Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , October 2016 , pp. 187 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annuaire Statistique de la Suisse. 1930–1965 (Bern).Google Scholar
Asociación de Ganaderos del Reino. 1925. Leche, queso y manteca. Estadística de la producción en España (Madrid).Google Scholar
Atkins, P. J. 1980. ‘The Retail Milk Trade in London, c.1790–1914’, The Economic History Review, 33, 522–37.Google Scholar
Atkins, P. J. 2010. Liquid Materialities: A History of Milk, Science and the Law (Farnham).Google Scholar
Ayuntamiento de Barcelona. 1902–1921. Anuario estadístico de la ciudad de Barcelona (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Ayuntamiento de Madrid. 1897–1939. Boletín del Ayuntamiento de Madrid (Madrid).Google Scholar
Bacon, L. B., Cassels, J. M. 1937. ‘The Milk Supply of Paris, Rome and Berlin’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51:4, 626–48.Google Scholar
Ballesteros, E. 1997. ‘Niveles de vida en España, siglos XIX y XX’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Madrid).Google Scholar
Barciela, C., Giráldez, J., GEHR and López, I. 2005. ‘Sector agrario y pesca’, in Carreras, A. and Tafunell, X., eds, Estadísticas históricas de España, siglos XIX-XX (Bilbao), pp. 245–356.Google Scholar
Bieleman, J. 2005. ‘Technological Innovation in Dutch Cattle Breeding and Dairy Farming, 1850–2000’, Agricultural History Review, 53:2, 229–50.Google Scholar
Bulharowski, G. 1929. De l'approvisionnement en lait des villes en France (Paris).Google Scholar
Calatayud, S. and Medina, F. J. 2016. ‘Leche sin prados: los factores ambientales e institucionales en el consumo lácteo (Valencia, 1870–1936)’, Ayer, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Carmona, X. and Puente, L. 1988. ‘Crisis agraria y vías de evolución ganadera en Galicia y Cantabria’, in Garrabou, R., ed., La crisis agraria de fines del siglo XIX (Barcelona), pp. 181–211.Google Scholar
Danmarks Statistik. 1896–1940. Statistisk aarbog (Köbenhavn).Google Scholar
Derry, M. E. 2003. Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses since 1800 (Baltimore).Google Scholar
Dirección General de Agricultura. 1913. Los servicios agrícolas y pecuarios de la Diputación de Guipúzcoa (Madrid).Google Scholar
Dirección General de Agricultura. 1929. Los servicios agrícolas y pecuarios de la Diputación de Valencia (Madrid).Google Scholar
Dirección General de Ganadería. 1932–1933. Publicaciones de la Dirección general de Ganadería e Industrias Pecuarias (Madrid).Google Scholar
Doaso, M. (1931): Abastecimiento de leche en las grandes poblaciones (Madrid).Google Scholar
Domínguez, R. 2003. ‘La industria láctea en España: 1860–1935’, in Barciela, C. and Vittorio, A. D., eds, Las industrias agroalimentarias en Italia y España durante los siglos XIX y XX (San Vicente del Raspeig), pp. 457–95.Google Scholar
Domínguez, R. and Puente, L. 2009. ‘Ganadería e industrialización láctea. El complejo ganadero industrial en Cantabria en el siglo XX’, in Germán, L. G., Hernández, R., Moreno, J., eds, Economía alimentaria en España durante el siglo XX (Madrid), pp. 143–79.Google Scholar
Echevarria, T., and Asarta, A. 1976. ‘El ganado vacuno de raza Pirenaica en Navarra’, Revista Pastos, 6:2, 213–34.Google Scholar
Dirección General de Aduanas. 1870–1935. Estadística General del Comercio Exterior de España (Madrid).Google Scholar
Faostat. 2012. From www.faostat.fao.org Google Scholar
Fisher, J. R. 1980. ‘The Economic Effects of Cattle Disease in Britain and its Containment, 1850–1900’, Agricultural History, 54:2, 278–94.Google Scholar
Fisher, J. R. 2003. ‘To Kill or not to Kill: The Eradication of Contagious Bovine Pleuro-Pneumonia in Western Europe’, Medical History, 47:3, 314–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foote, R. H. 2002. ‘The History of Artificial Insemination: Selected Notes and Notables’, Journal of Animal Science, 80, 1–10.Google Scholar
Friend, J. B. 1978. Cattle of the World (Poole).Google Scholar
García, D. (1927): ‘El problema de la leche en Madrid’, Revista de Higiene y Sanidad Pecuarias, December 1927, 959–61.Google Scholar
González, M., and Guzmán, G. I. 2006. Tras los pasos de la insustentabilidad: agricultura y medio ambiente en perspectiva histórica: siglos XVIII-XX (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Grigg, D. 1992. The Transformation of Agriculture in the West (Oxford).Google Scholar
Grupo de Estudios de Historia Rural. 1978. ‘Contribución al análisis histórico de la ganadería española, 1865–1929, I’, Agricultura y sociedad, 8, 129–82.Google Scholar
Hartog, A. P. 1998. ‘Serving the Urban Consumer: The Development of Modern Food Packaging with Special Reference to the Milk Bottle’, in Schärer, M. R. and Fenton, A., eds, Food and Material Culture: Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium of the International Commission for Research into European Food History (East Linton), pp. 248–68.Google Scholar
Hartog, A. P. 2007. ‘The Discovery of Vitamins and its Impact on the Food Industry: The Issue of Tinned Sweetened Condensed Milk 1890–1940’, in Atkins, P. J., Lummel, P. and Oddy, D. J., eds, Food and the City in Europe since 1800 (Aldershot), pp. 131–42.Google Scholar
Harwood, J. 2012. Europe's Green Revolution and Others Since: The Rise and Fall of Peasant-friendly Plant Breeding (London).Google Scholar
Henriksen, I., and O'Rourke, K. H. 2005. ‘Incentives, Technology and the Shift to Year-round Dairying in Late Nineteenth-Century Denmark’, Economic History Review, 58:3, 520–54.Google Scholar
Henriksen, I., Lampe, M. and Sharp, P. R. 2012. ‘The Strange Birth of Liberal Denmark: Danish Trade Protection and the Growth of the Dairy Industry since the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 65:2, 770–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, I. and Pujol, J. 2016. ‘Cities and Milk Consumption in Europe: The Emergence of a New Market, 1880–1935’, Historia Agraria, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Houghton, F. L. 1897. Holstein-Friesian Cattle: A History of the Breed and its Development in America (Brattleboro, Vermont).Google Scholar
INSEE. 1878–1965. Annuaire statistique de la France (Paris).Google Scholar
Institut International d'Agriculture. 1911–1941. Annuaire international de statistique agricole (Roma).Google Scholar
Junta Consultiva Agronómica. 1892. La Ganadería en España: avance sobre la riqueza pecuaria en 1891 (Madrid).Google Scholar
Junta Consultiva Agronómica. 1920. Estudio de la ganadería en España (Madrid).Google Scholar
Junta General de Estadística. 1868. Censo de la ganadería en España según el recuento verificado en 24 de septiembre de 1865 (Madrid).Google Scholar
Kloppenburg, J.R. 1988. First the Seed. The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1292–2000 (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Knibbe, M. 1993. Agriculture in the Netherlands 1851–1950: Production and Institutional Change (Amsterdam).Google Scholar
Langreo Navarro, A. 1995. Historia de la industria láctea española: una aplicación a Asturias (Madrid).Google Scholar
League of Nations. 1937. Final Report of the Mixed Committee of the League of Nations in Relation to Nutrition in Health, Agriculture and Economic Policy (Geneva).Google Scholar
Llovet, J. 1934. La producció de llet i vaques lleteres a l'Empordà (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Luís y Yagüe, R. 1903. Bromatología popular urbana: La Alimentación del proletariado en Madrid (Lo que es. - Lo que debe ser). Del abastecimiento alimenticio de Madrid (Madrid).Google Scholar
Martínez, A. 1991. ‘Antecedentes del sector lácteo gallego, 1890–1935’, Agricultura y Sociedad, 59, 9–40.Google Scholar
Mas, J. 1933. La labor dels Serveis de Sanitat Veterinària l'any 1932 (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Mas, J. 1935. Els serveis del cos de veterinària a l'any 1934 (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Matz, B. 2011. ‘Crossing, Grading, and Keeping Pure: Animal Breeding and Exchange around 1860’, Endeavour, 35:1, 7–15.Google Scholar
Mendizabal, J. A., Ibarbia, J. R., and Etxaniz, J. M. 2005. ‘Aportaciones a la Historia de la raza vacuna Pirenaica: Paradigma de la zootecnia española’, Archivos de Zootecnia, 54, 39–50.Google Scholar
Ministerio de Agricultura. 1934. Tres estudios económicos: apéndice al Anuario estadístico de las producciones agrícolas: año 1933 (Madrid).Google Scholar
Ministerio de Economía. 1930. Anuario Estadístico de las Producciones Agrícolas. Censo ganadero en 30 de mayo de 1929 y estadísticas de las producciones ganaderas (Madrid).Google Scholar
Ministerio de Fomento. 1924. Censo de la Riqueza Pecuaria (Madrid).Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. 1988. British Historical Statistics (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. 1998. International Historical Statistics (London).Google Scholar
Murcott, A. 1999. ‘Scarcity in Abundance: Food and Non-Food’, Social Research, 66:1, 305–39.Google Scholar
Nagore, D. [1920]. Los servicios agrícolas y pecuarios de la Diputación de Navarra (Madrid).Google Scholar
Nicolau, R., Pujol, J. and Hernandez, I. 2010. ‘Milk, Social Acceptance of a New Food in Europe: Catalonia, XIXth-XXth’, Dynamis, 30, 119–40.Google Scholar
Oklahoma State University. 2012. Breeds of Cattle (http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/).Google Scholar
Olmstead, A. L. and Rhode, P. W. 2008. Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Orland, B. 2003. ‘Turbo-Cows. Producing a Competitive Animal in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth centuries’, in Schrepfer, S., and Scranton, P., eds, Industrializing Organisms. Introducing Evolutionary History (London), pp. 167–89.Google Scholar
Orland, B. 2005. ‘Milky Ways: Dairy, Landscape and Nation Building until 1930’, in Sarasúa, C., Scholliers, P. and Molle, L. V., eds, Land, Shops and Kitchens: Technology and the Food Chain in Twentieth-century Europe (Turnhout), pp. 212–54.Google Scholar
Orland, B. 2007. ‘Bad Habits and Liquid Pleasures: Milk and the Alcohol Abstinence Movement in late 19th Century Germany’, Food and History, 5, 153–69.Google Scholar
Pérez, E. 1991. Antecedentes de la especialización láctea en el vacuno cántabro (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Santander).Google Scholar
Pirtle, T. R. 1922. A Handbook of Dairy Statistics (Washington).Google Scholar
Pirtle, T. R. 1926. History of the Dairy Industry (Chicago).Google Scholar
Porter, V. 2007. Cattle: A Handbook to the Breeds of the World (Ramsbury).Google Scholar
Powell, L. R., Norman, H. D., and Dickinson, F. N. 1975. ‘Sire Differences in Sex Ratio of Progeny’, Journal of Dairy Science, 58:11, 1723–6.Google Scholar
Puente, L. 1992. Transformaciones agrarias en Cantabria: el proceso de especialización del ganado vacuno, 1860–1930 (Santander).Google Scholar
Pujol, J., Nicolau, R. and Hernández, I. 2007. ‘El consumo de leche fresca en Cataluña entre mediados del siglo XIX y 1935: la difusión de un nuevo alimento’, Historia Agraria, 42, 303–25.Google Scholar
Pujol, J. and Nicolau, R. 2005. ‘El consumo de proteínas animales en Barcelona entre las décadas de 1830 y 1930’, Investigaciones de Historia Económica, 3, 101–34.Google Scholar
Pujol, J. 2002. ‘Especialización ganadera, industrias agroalimentarias y costes de transacción: Cataluña, 1880–1936’, Historia Agraria, 27, 191–219.Google Scholar
Pujol, J. 2011. ‘Wheat Varieties and Technological Change in Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries: New Issues in Economic History’, Historia Agraria, 54, 71–103.Google Scholar
Rew, R. H. 1892. ‘An Inquiry into the Statistics of the Production and Consumption of Milk and Milk Products in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 55:2, 244–86.Google Scholar
Ritvo, H. 1987. The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in Victorian England (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Rossell, P. M. 1919. Importancia de la ganadería en Cataluña y estudio zootécnico de algunas de sus comarcas (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Rossell, P. M. 1923. Les Vaques i la producció de llet (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Rothenbacher, F. 2002. The European Population 1850–1945 (Basingstoke).Google Scholar
Santiago, C. 1922. Las Vacas suizas y holandesas en España (Madrid).Google Scholar
Sanz, C. 1935. ‘La producción lechera en la provincia de Santander’, Carne y Leche, 18, 343–58.Google Scholar
Simm, G. 1998. Genetic Improvement of Cattle and Sheep (Ipswich).Google Scholar
Simpson, J. 1995. Spanish Agriculture: The Long Siesta (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Spinage, C. A. 2003. Cattle Plague: A History (New York).Google Scholar
Taylor, D. 1976. ‘The English Dairy Industry, 1860–1930’, Economic History Review, 29, 585–601.Google Scholar
Theunissen, B. 2008. ‘Breeding Without Mendelism: Theory and Practice of Dairy Cattle Breeding in the Netherlands, 1900–1950’, Journal of the History of Biology, 41, 637–76.Google Scholar
Toutain, J. C. 1971. ‘La consommation alimentaire en France, 1789 à 1964’, Economies et Sociétés - Cahiers De l'ISMEA, 11, 1909–2049.Google Scholar
United States Consular Reports. 1888. Cattle and Dairy Farming (Washington).Google Scholar
Urteaga, L. 1980. ‘Miseria, miasmas y microbios. Las topografías médicas y el estudio del medio ambiente en el siglo XIX’, Geo Crítica, 29, 1–39.Google Scholar
Vallribera, P. 2000. Les topografies mèdiques de la Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de Catalunya (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Vatin, F. 1990. L'Industrie du lait: essai d'histoire économique (Paris).Google Scholar
Vila, P. 1979. Opinions d'un geògraf i actituds d'un ciutadà. Selecció d'escrits de Geografia de Pau Vila (Barcelona).Google Scholar
Womack, J., ed., 2012. Bovine Genomics. (Ames, Iowa).Google Scholar
Wood, R.; Orel, V. 2001. Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding: A Prelude to Mendel (Oxford).Google Scholar
Woods, A. 2004. ‘The Construction of an Animal Plague: Foot and Mouth Disease in Nineteenth-century Britain’, Social History of Medicine, 17, 23–39.Google Scholar
Woods, A. 2007. ‘The Farm as Clinic: Veterinary Expertise and the Transformation of Dairy Farming, 1930–1950’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 38: 2, 462–87.Google Scholar
Woods, A. 2011. ‘A Historical Synopsis of Farm Animal Disease and Public Policy in Twentieth Century Britain’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 366, 1943–1954.Google Scholar