Publication: Soils, scale, or elites? Biological innovation in Uruguayan cattle farming, 1880-1913
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2023-05-01
Defense date
Authors
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Impact
Export
Abstract
This article examines the economics of innovation in livestock rearing during the first globalisation in Uruguay, the country with the most cattle per person in the world, both then and now. Using a new historical dataset of Uruguayan agriculture, the first one at a sub-provincial level, I exploit regional differences in the adoption of cattle crossbreeding - the genetic improvement of local herds through hybridisation with foreign breeds. Contrary to traditional historiographical claims, I find that this innovation was not primarily explained by the location of enlightened elites (European or local) or by the scale of productive units (i.e. latifundia); rather, rural producers invested in crossbreeding wherever their local landscapes and previous productive choices encouraged it. While it affected biological processes that spanned several agricultural calendars, and thereby developed more slowly than innovations in crop farming, technical change in Uruguayan ranching was also environmentally sensitive, largely scale-neutral, congruent with previous agricultural patterns, and hinged on a widespread response from producers.
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Cattle, Elites, Latifundia, Soils, Uruguay, Biological innovation, First globalisation
Bibliographic citation
Travieso, E. (2022). Soils, scale, or elites? Biological Innovation in Uruguayan Cattle Farming, 1880–1913. The Economic History Review, 76(2), 498-524.