Preliminary Programme

Wed 22 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 23 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Sat 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 22 March 2006 14:15
A-3 RUR01 State and Agriculture in Europe
Room A
Network: Rural Chair: Miguel Cabo Villaverde
Organizers: - Discussant: Ernst Langthaler
Aikaterini Aroni-Tsichli : The crisis of current in Greece : Protectionism and social conflicts, 1892-1905
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Greece had been rendered an exporting country as regards mainly one product (currant), due to the massive export of currant abroad. England was the main country to which currant was exported. The currant exports doubled when a great demand of currant started suddenly ... (Show more)
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Greece had been rendered an exporting country as regards mainly one product (currant), due to the massive export of currant abroad. England was the main country to which currant was exported. The currant exports doubled when a great demand of currant started suddenly from France during the decade of 1870. Then, the cultivation of currant excessively extended in the areas of Northwestern Peloponnese.
However, the purchase of France, stopped to absorb Greek currant in the early 1890s, when the French vineyards recovered from the disease (phylloxera) that had destroyed them. Thus, due to the non-absorption of large quantities of currant, the big crisis of currant burst out.
Then in the area of the currant cultivation, mainly in Northwestern Peloponnese, dynamic mobilizations of the populations took place, asking from the state to exercise intervention policy.
The social fights and the demands of the harmed areas will be set forth in the announcement, as well as the policy which was exercised by the governments of that time for the confrontation of the currant crisis, commencing from the liberal policy that prime minister Ch.Trikoupis exercised in the issue of currant. Furthermore, the measures taken by the following governments in order to cope with the currant crisis until 1905, when this big crisis started to defuse, will be also set forth. (Show less)

Juan Carmona, James Simpson : Economies of scale and obstacles to land reform, the case of Andalucía, 1931-36.
Although total factor productivity is often very similar in areas of both large and small farms, they utilise factor inputs in very different proportions. Small farms can achieve high levels of output by using family labour to work the land intensely, but modest inputs of capital. By contrast, large farms ... (Show more)
Although total factor productivity is often very similar in areas of both large and small farms, they utilise factor inputs in very different proportions. Small farms can achieve high levels of output by using family labour to work the land intensely, but modest inputs of capital. By contrast, large farms tend to utilise labour and land extensively, and production is relatively intensive in capital. The incentives facing large farmers therefore differ from those facing small farms. The major economic justifications for land reform arises not so much that large farms are inefficient, but rather that in low income economies large estates save on the one factor that is available in large quantities and cheap (labour), but utilise more intensively another factor that is scarce (capital).
A successful land reform has to shift from extensive to more intensive crop rotations, and a crop mix that uses family labour intensively. Yet the experience in many countries shows that simply dividing large farms into small plots has never been by itself enough, as successful reforms also requires the removal of landlord and urban biases in government policies. Concerning the former, state sponsored research is required to develop yield-raising technologies, establish public irrigations systems, introduce market price intervention directed at crops grown on small farms, credit policies, etc. However, urban biases, such as artificially low prices for basic foods, or public sector investment in infrastructure and human capital (education, health) directed towards urban rather than rural areas, also has to be changed.
The political problems associated with land reform in Spain during the Second Republic has been neatly summarised by Malefakis (1970), who notes that a slow reform, in which landowners were fully compensated, ran the risk of widespread opposition from the landless. By contrast, a rapid reform in which property rights were overlooked, risked fierce opposition from landowners. The governments of the Second Republic managed to alienate both groups, and the quantity of land redistributed was relatively small. In this paper we argue there was an additional problem which has not been fully considered by historians, namely the difficulties associated with converting an efficient, but extensive farming system, that had developed over centuries, into an intensive farming system which would allow the landless labourers settled on small farms to be economically viable. The paper comprises three sections. In the first we look at the nature of the latifundio, and in particular why labour was undersupplied and farms remained large, even when rented. The second section looks at the implications of converting a highly specialised agriculture based on cereals (and livestock) into another, more suitable for family farms. Finally, in the last section we consider the difficulties in removing the ‘urban bias’ in a society where the farm sector was becoming increasing less important. (Show less)

Michael Turner, John Beckett : The End of the Old Order? The Land Question and the Burden of Ownership in the UK, c.1880-c.1925
Between c.1880 and 1914 a number of issues focussed attention on the land question in the UK. The agricultural depression, the impact of the encumbered estates legislation, the introduction in 1894 of death duties, and the fears of the landed interest relating to Lloyd George’s proposed land taxes, put pressure ... (Show more)
Between c.1880 and 1914 a number of issues focussed attention on the land question in the UK. The agricultural depression, the impact of the encumbered estates legislation, the introduction in 1894 of death duties, and the fears of the landed interest relating to Lloyd George’s proposed land taxes, put pressure on landowners as never before. Few major estates came on the market prior to 1914, but after the War the business of owning and operating an estate no longer seemed attractive. By one contemporary calculation one-quarter of the land of England changed hands 1918-21, as landowners offloaded their estates and country houses. If true this would have been nothing short of revolutionary – a turnover unknown since the Dissolution of the Monasteries or even the Norman Conquest. This paper revisits the land question on the eve of World War I, and uses previously neglected data to assess turnover in the wake of the 1918 Armistice. The data enable us to question the credibility of contemporary claims. Was the country close to a revolution in landownership post-1918, or were the fears expressed by landowners before 1914, and by commentators after 1918, exaggerations which led to a misunderstanding of the reality of the land question in these years? (Show less)



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