project

Start date: 1/3/2012

Date of completion: 1/2/2015

Website:

Agriculture in Portugal: Food, Development and Sustainability (1870-2010)

The project is divided in three parts.

The first one is instrumental and aims at the construction of four databases, which make it possible to systematize, analyze and disseminate information essential for the development of studies on Portuguese agriculture (1870-2010). One brings together the main economic and social indicators, related to agricultural goods, broken down by sectors of activity, productive subsectors and regions. Another organizes the legal acts promulgated for the various aspects of the production, transformation, commerce and consumption of agricultural goods. Another group includes the institutions that have integrated agricultural activities over the period studied, including state services, corporate bodies and civil society organizations.

Finally, the fourth database is an inventory of secondary sources (agricultural press, reports, opinions, etc.), most of which are produced by different state departments, corporate bodies and university institutions. Many of these sources, with unpublished information, are scattered throughout small libraries and documentation centers, and are still little known to most researchers. The experience of the team members, combining experts in different disciplines and in short historical periods, allows us to overcome the existing gaps and select the most pertinent information.

The diversity of the data gathered, combined with the chronological and spatial scope, gives great utility to these instruments of work, constituting them as an advance in contemporary Portuguese historiography. The four databases will be available to the Portuguese and international scientific community on the website. The second part of the Project involves the analysis of these databases and the information collected, through other methodologies, by team members. This analysis is aimed at elucidating the national implications of three main issues, whose ongoing international academic debates require renewed clarification of a historical and geographical nature. One relates to the conditions of production, supply and costs of food. It is necessary to relate these conditions to public policy guidelines (associated with food sovereignty and insertion in the dynamics of international markets), proposals for the modernization of agriculture, national agro-ecological specificities, living standards and consumer preferences . Another issue stems from the assessment of the contributions of the primary sector to economic growth and the overall development of the country.

Presented as peripheral and backward, until the 1960s agriculture was the main contributor to gross domestic product, the chronology of different economic circumstances is known, but almost everything about regional differentiations is ignored. It is also necessary to assess historically the impacts of Portugal’s entry into the European Economic Community (1986) and the implementation of the common agricultural policy. Another, finally, requires consideration of how the historicity of sustainable practices, from production to consumption of agricultural goods, is related to public policy and development. The third part deals with the contributions of this project to the renewal of historiography on Portuguese agriculture and rural society. And to deepen the comparative dimension in the European and global framework. First, with the construction of four databases with strategic information to support future studies and whose lack is felt at different levels.

The systematization of this information is all the more important since, for example, general or sub-sectoral synthesis works are lacking for Portugal (unlike Spain, France, Italy and England). And also, because there is no script of primary sources, largely ignoring the whereabouts of this documentation for the contemporary period. Secondly, the insertion in the national and international academic debates, in which agriculture has come to regain centrality. These connections are favored by the different disciplinary formations of the team members and by participation in national and international conferences, projects and scientific networks, in operation for decades (Portuguese Society of Rural Studies, Portuguese Association of Economic and Social History, Eeuropean Society for Rural Sociology , International Economic History Association) or recently constituted (RuralRePort-Network of Rural History in Portuguese, Rural History European Organization).

Agriculture Project in Portugal: Food, Development and Sustainability (1870-2010) – PTDC / HIS-HIS / 122589/2010 – Funded by FCT.