SPECIAL SECTION: EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Environmental constraints on agricultural growth in 19th century granada (Southern Spain)

Historians and economists have been unaware of environmental constraints and they have considered the low yield per hectare of the main cereals to be an indication of the relative backwardness of Southern Spanish agriculture. This paper proposes a methodology of analysis that integrates environmental and economic variables to explain the differences in crop productivity between Southern Spain and northern Europe in the 19th century. Here, the relative backwardness will be explained not only by deficiencies in productivity, capital investment or diffusion of new technology, but principally by the comparati e ecological disad antages that areas such as Andalusia had in comparison with Northern Europe, if an agricultural growth based on cereals was to be chosen. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.