Soils, scale, or elites? Biological innovation in Uruguayan cattle farming, 1880-1913

Travieso Barrios, Emiliano

Publication:
Soils, scale, or elites? Biological innovation in Uruguayan cattle farming, 1880-1913

dc.affiliation.dpto	UC3M. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales	es
dc.affiliation.grupoinv	UC3M. Grupo de Investigación: Historias de los Capitalismos Latinos Globales (H-GLACIAL)	es
dc.contributor.author	Travieso Barrios, Emiliano
dc.date.accessioned	2023-09-26T07:05:43Z
dc.date.available	2023-09-26T07:05:43Z
dc.date.issued	2023-05-01
dc.description.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.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	I benefitted from discussions at the universities of Barcelona, Cambridge, Carlos III de Madrid, Stellenbosch, and Universidad de la República (Uruguay). I am grateful to my PhD supervisor at Cambridge, Gareth Austin, and to the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. Special thanks are also due to colleagues who commented separately: Nicolás Bonino-Gayoso, Pablo Castro Scavone, Ewout Frankema, Alfonso Herranz-Loncán, Juan Infante-Amate, Dácil Juif, María Inés Moraes, Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Antonio Tena-Junguito, and Henry Willebald. William Travieso provided key advice on sources. I am thankful to editor Giovanni Federico and two anonymous referees from the Review, whose suggestions and criticisms were extraordinarily detailed and immensely improved this article. Research funding from the Cambridge International Trust, the Ellen McArthur Fund, and King's College, Cambridge is gratefully acknowledged. All translations are mine, as are all mistakes	en
dc.format.extent	27	es
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitation	Travieso, E. (2022). Soils, scale, or elites? Biological Innovation in Uruguayan Cattle Farming, 1880–1913. The Economic History Review, 76(2), 498-524.	en
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13196
dc.identifier.issn	0013-0117
dc.identifier.publicationfirstpage	498	es
dc.identifier.publicationissue	2	es
dc.identifier.publicationlastpage	524	es
dc.identifier.publicationtitle	The Economic History Review	en
dc.identifier.publicationvolume	76	es
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10016/38444
dc.identifier.uxxi	AR/0000032778
dc.language.iso	eng	en
dc.publisher	Wiley	en
dc.relation.dataset	https://doi.org/10.21950/17FVAY
dc.relation.projectID	AT-2022	es
dc.rights	© 2022 The Authors. The Economic History Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Economic History Society.	en
dc.rights	Atribución-NoComercial 3.0 España	*
dc.rights.accessRights	open access	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/es/	*
dc.subject.eciencia	Economía	es
dc.subject.eciencia	Energías Renovables	es
dc.subject.eciencia	Historia	es
dc.subject.eciencia	Política	es
dc.subject.eciencia	Sociología	es
dc.subject.other	Agriculture	en
dc.subject.other	Cattle	en
dc.subject.other	Elites	en
dc.subject.other	Latifundia	en
dc.subject.other	Soils	en
dc.subject.other	Uruguay	en
dc.subject.other	Biological innovation	en
dc.subject.other	First globalisation	en
dc.title	Soils, scale, or elites? Biological innovation in Uruguayan cattle farming, 1880-1913	en
dc.type	research article	*
dc.type.hasVersion	VoR	*
dspace.entity.type	Publication