A guide to studying the socio-ecological transition in european agriculture

Abstract

This paper shows the potential of the Social Metabolism approach to study the industrialization of the agriculture. It provides information about the physical functioning of agrarian systems over time and their spatial differences. It also sheds light on how the industrialisation of agriculture occurred; in other words, how the Socio-Ecological Transition (SET) took place in agriculture. The paper begins defining the characteristic features of the Organic Agrarian Metabolism (OAM), the starting point of Sociecological Transition. The next section examines the main changes there been in agrarian metabolism until its complete industrialization. This analysis is enriched by the concept of the SET since, by showing the paths followed by industrialisation from a physical perspective, it establishes the research agenda or points out a series of issues that should be prioritised in research; it facilitates identification of the driving forces for change that interact between social and environmental factors; and it establishes special scales in which transition occurs and the relationship between them. The paper ends with the application of this conceptual fremework to teh First Wave of industrialization in European Agriculture during 19th century.