Enric Tello
Universitat de Barcelona, Història i Institucions econòmiques, Faculty Member
- Enric Tello is an Agricultural and Environmental Historian in the Department of Economic History, Institutions, Polic... moreEnric Tello is an Agricultural and Environmental Historian in the Department of Economic History, Institutions, Policy and World Economy at the University of Barcelona, where he leads a multidisciplinary research team included in the international project on "Sustainable Farm Systems: Long-Term Socio-Ecological Metabolism in Western Agriculture" (SFS) funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada from 2012 to 2018. Together with the SFS Partnership Grant this team has developed ground-breaking methodologies like a multi-EROI approach to Energy Flow Accounting of Agroecosystems, an Energy-Landscape Integrated Analysis (ELIA), and a Sustainable Farm Reproduction Analysis (SFRA) which aim at carrying out Environmental History research as a transdisciplinary meeting point where some of the main research topics on Sustainable Science can be addressed from a long-term perspective—e.g. assessing how bio-economically circular farm systems are, which ecosystem services they can offer, and which environmental impacts they cause.edit
Research Interests: Geography and Indigenous
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Early energy analyses of agriculture revealed that behind higher labor and land productivity of industrial farming, there was a decrease in energy returns on energy (EROI) invested, in comparison to more traditional organic agricultural... more
Early energy analyses of agriculture revealed that behind higher labor and land productivity of industrial farming, there was a decrease in energy returns on energy (EROI) invested, in comparison to more traditional organic agricultural systems. Studies on recent trends show that efficiency gains in production and use of inputs have again somewhat improved energy returns. However, most of these agricultural energy studies have focused only on external inputs at the crop level, concealing the important role of internal biomass flows that livestock and forestry recirculate within agroecosystems. Here, we synthesize the results of 82 farm systems in North America and Europe from 1830 to 2012 that for the first time show the changing energy profiles of agroecosystems, including livestock and forestry, with a multi-EROI approach that accounts for the energy returns on external inputs, on internal biomass reuses, and on all inputs invested. With this historical circular bioeconomic approa...
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13 del libro editado por Tim Marshall, Transforming Barcelona, Routledge, Londres y Nueva Cork, 2004, p. 225-250). _____________________________________________________________________________ Descubriendo el mediterráneo "La ciudad... more
13 del libro editado por Tim Marshall, Transforming Barcelona, Routledge, Londres y Nueva Cork, 2004, p. 225-250). _____________________________________________________________________________ Descubriendo el mediterráneo "La ciudad creativa, multifuncional, que es también la ciudad más habitable, es la que menos contamina." Ese y otros pasajes del Libro Verde sobre el Medio Ambiente Urbano, presentado a la Comisión Europea en julio de 1990 (COM(90)218final:30), podrían considerarse un acta de nacimiento del nuevo urbanismo socioecológico del final del siglo XX, que rompe con el funcionalismo dominante desde los tiempos de la Carta de Atenas (1933) inspirada por Le Corbussier. Irónicamente mientras los urbanistas europeos (L. Krier, 1993:36-41; J. Martínez Alier, 1999:51-54) e incluso americanos (M. O'Meara, 1999:253-286) empiezan a redescubrir las ventajas ambientales y sociales del sistema urbano tradicional del mediterráneo, con sus tramas densas, mixtas y plurifunc...
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La nova llei aprovada pel Parlament de Catalunya ha permès posar fi a la guerra de l'aigua a l'àrea metropolitana de Barcelona. Durant vuit anys un nombre creixent de famílies, que van acabar sumant més de vuitanta mil –és a... more
La nova llei aprovada pel Parlament de Catalunya ha permès posar fi a la guerra de l'aigua a l'àrea metropolitana de Barcelona. Durant vuit anys un nombre creixent de famílies, que van acabar sumant més de vuitanta mil –és a dir, dues-centes cinquanta mil persones ...
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Es presenta un resum dels plantejaments teòrics i el conjunt de metodologies emprades al projecte de recerca internacional d'història ambiental "Sustainable farm systems:long-term socio-ecological metabolism in western... more
Es presenta un resum dels plantejaments teòrics i el conjunt de metodologies emprades al projecte de recerca internacional d'història ambiental "Sustainable farm systems:long-term socio-ecological metabolism in western agriculture", que combina l'anàlisi de fluxos d'energia i materials de l'economia ecològica i l'agroecologia, amb l'estudi dels canvis d'usos i cobertes del sòl avaluats des del punt de vista ambiental amb les mètriques i índexs de l'ecologia del paisatge. La hipòtesi orientadora bàsica del projecte prové de la idea de Ramon Margalef segons la qual els paisatges agroforestals tradicionals en mosaic són una bona forma d'explotació de la natura, que fins i tot incrementen la biodiversitat del territori perquè mantenen integrats diferents nivells de dissipació d'energia antròpica per unitat de superfície en una estructura complexa capaç de combinar producció amb conservació. Els mapes d'estructura i connectivitat ecol...
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We assess the social metabolism of very different farm systems that existed in Valles County, along the socio-ecological transition from organic to industrial agriculture at three different time points from 1860 to 1999. This allows us to... more
We assess the social metabolism of very different farm systems that existed in Valles County, along the socio-ecological transition from organic to industrial agriculture at three different time points from 1860 to 1999. This allows us to analyze these contrasting food systems by focusing on four perspectives: agricultural labour productivity in relation to regional diets, the importance of multi-functionality in agroecosystems, the loss of landscape diversity and species richness, and the impacts of the current food regime at global and local scales. The socio-metabolic profiles obtained show that (1) winegrowing specialization co-existed with sustenance-oriented organic farming in 1860; (2) in 1956, the resumption of grain growing, combined with incipient use of industrial fertilizers, led to a more diverse agroecosystem where greater dependence on external inputs was countered by an increased productivity, providing more balanced diets and producing minor impacts on landscape ecology; (3) by 1999, a specialization in feedlots had disconnected local diets from a linear agro-industrial feed-meat chain based on huge feed imports from the Global South, leading to highly polarized socio-ecological impacts. Whereas unequal ecological exchange affects peasant communities and agroecosystems in feed-exporting countries, local landscapes suffer from the accumulation of dung waste poured into flatlands and from forest abandonment in steeper areas.
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We are seeking to analyze the role played by forest and territorial management in the economic and ecological functioning of the agrarian ecosystem in a West-Mediterranean advanced organic economy towards 1860, and compare it with the one... more
We are seeking to analyze the role played by forest and territorial management in the economic and ecological functioning of the agrarian ecosystem in a West-Mediterranean advanced organic economy towards 1860, and compare it with the one prevailing at the end of the 20th century. In order to highlight the link between energy and land use, we have reconstructed the agrarian energy balances in fi ve Catalan municipalities towards 1860 and at present, to relate them with the landscape evolution of this territory reconstructed by GIS from cadastral maps and aerial photographs. Working together with landscape ecologists we have applied to these land-use maps some indices of eco-landscape structure and connectivity to understand their ecological functioning. We have found that in 1860 the energy return on energy input was 1.67, despite its unavoidable dependence on the ineffi cient livestock bioconversion to obtain manure and traction. In 1999, on the contrary, the return was only 0.21, ...
Appendix (annex 2 and 3) to the article: Geographic expansion and intensification of coffee-growing in Costa Rica during the Green Revolution (1950-89): Drivers and outcomes.
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Research on seigneurial agriculture and its role for agricultural changes in general has a long tradition within European Agricultural History. Still, much discussion arises on whether to emphasize «peasant paths» or “landlord paths” of... more
Research on seigneurial agriculture and its role for agricultural changes in general has a long tradition within European Agricultural History. Still, much discussion arises on whether to emphasize «peasant paths» or “landlord paths” of agricultural development. This study contributes to the debate by introducing a social ecology perspective. Using the nineteenth-century case study of Grundherrschaft (manor) Grafenegg, we offer a first attempt at conceptualizing and empirically scrutinizing resource use and distribution in (late) Central European seigneurial agriculture. We integrate rich archival material to reconstruct the distribution of three central resources –land, food and labour– among the agrarian agents (e.g. manorial farmsteads, peasant farms and smallholdings). We found that the three central resources in pre-industrial agriculture were distributed unequally between the various farmsteads involved; labour was abundant, whereas food and land were scarce. The labour surplu...
Research Interests: Geography, Agricultural Development, Agriculture, Social Ecological Systems, Biodiversity, and 15 moreSocial Inequality, Soil fertility management, Agricultural Systems, Señorío, Subsistence Agriculture, Peasant, Desigualdad Social, Seigneury, D, N, Sustainability, Q, Biodiversitat, Desarrollo agrícola, and Escasez De Recursos
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This article presents fresh improved aggregated data on coffee-growing regional specialization in Costa Rica between the 1950s to the 1980s and discusses the determinants of the expansion of that coffee cropping frontier with amodel that... more
This article presents fresh improved aggregated data on coffee-growing regional specialization in Costa Rica between the 1950s to the 1980s and discusses the determinants of the expansion of that coffee cropping frontier with amodel that combines environmental and geo-economic drivers. The model performs amultiregression analysis that includes agroclimatic, land use, demographic, and market access variables to explain the geographical patterns of expansion and intensification of coffee-growing areas during the deployment of the Green Revolution. The results allow us to characterize the locations and understand the main drivers behind coffee regional specialization. The results confirm that the locations of coffee-growing expansion were conditioned by a dynamic interaction among first and second-nature factors whose importance changed over time within a complex social and agro-ecological fabric that allowed, to some extent, the endurance of functional shaded management in small-scale...
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Research Interests: Environmental Engineering, Geography, Cleaner Production, Agroecology, Sustainable agriculture, and 8 moreRegional Planning, Manufacturing Engineering, Agricultural Ecology, Interdisciplinary Engineering, Agricultura Sostenible, Sustainability, Agricultural Processing Industries, and Ecologia agrícola
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This article presents a method for estimating an annual series of English wheat production in physical units during the intriguing period of 1645-1761, when the English Agricultural Revolution began. It is based on Davenant’s Law and the... more
This article presents a method for estimating an annual series of English wheat production in physical units during the intriguing period of 1645-1761, when the English Agricultural Revolution began. It is based on Davenant’s Law and the assumption of a decrease in long-term crop variability, taking into account the yields obtained from probate inventories and farm accounts. The exercise confirms the idea that the King-Davenant accounting of the inverse variation of prices and quantities through price elasticity was indeed a common rule at that time, whereas income elasticity did not become a decisive factor until the mid-18th century. From then on it gained momentum, as can be observed by lengthening the series until 1884. The new series of English wheat production presented here also shows that, from a physical and environmental perspective, the Agricultural Revolution began before 1750 and resumed after 1800. The results are consistent with recent estimates of agricultural GDP pu...
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This article aims to situate a national case study of the global periphery at the core of the debate on the socio-ecological transition by drawing on new data of biomass flows in twentieth-century Colombia. We draw up a century-long... more
This article aims to situate a national case study of the global periphery at the core of the debate on the socio-ecological transition by drawing on new data of biomass flows in twentieth-century Colombia. We draw up a century-long annual series converting a wide set of indicators from Net Primary Production (NPP) into the final socioeconomic uses of biomass, distinguishing around 200 different categories of crops, forests, and pastures. Our calculations draw on FAOSTAT and several corpuses of national statistics. The results show a fall of 10% in total NPP related to land-use changes involving forest conversion. Throughout the twentieth century, pasture was the most relevant among domestic extraction. Allocations of cash crops to industrial processing rose while the figure for staple crops for primary food consumption stagnated. The critical role of cattle throughout all periods and the higher yields of the industrial cash crops are behind this profile. This might also mean the st...
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The long-term impact on income inequality of agricultural commercial specialization is still an open-ended discussion. Diverse economic models and approaches offer competing views, while historians increasingly stress the contingent... more
The long-term impact on income inequality of agricultural commercial specialization is still an open-ended discussion. Diverse economic models and approaches offer competing views, while historians increasingly stress the contingent nature of the paths followed in the various contexts. Applying common inequality indices like the Theil index along with new ones such as the inequality possible frontier (IPF) and Inequality Extraction Ratios (IER), this study examines how winegrowing specialization in Catalonia correlated with agr icultural income distribution in the municipalities of the province of Barcelona during the mid-nineteenth century. This analysis examines a large dataset assembled from over 86,000 cadastral taxpayers in 292 municipalities and recorded in the Distribution of Personal Wealth in Real Estate Ownership of the province of Barcelona in 1852, combined with other population and land use data listed in the Estadística ter ritor ial de la provincia de Barcelona (Land ...
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The paper analyses how between 1956 and 2009 the agrarian metabolism of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) has become less functional, losing circularity in biomass flows and in relationship to its landscape. We do so by adopting a... more
The paper analyses how between 1956 and 2009 the agrarian metabolism of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) has become less functional, losing circularity in biomass flows and in relationship to its landscape. We do so by adopting a Multi-EROI and flow-fund (MuSIASEM) analyses and its nexus with landscape functional structure. The study of agricultural flows of Final Produce, Biomass Reused and External Inputs is integrated with that of land use, livestock, power capacity and population changes between 1956 (at the beginning of the Green Revolution) and 2009 (fully industrialized agriculture). A multi-scale analysis is conducted at the landscape scale (seven districts within the Barcelona metropolitan region) as well as for the functions deployed, within an agroecosystem, by the mutual interactions between its funds (land-uses, livestock and farming population). A complex nexus between land, livestock, dietary patterns and energy needs is shown; we conclude that from the perspec...
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In response to the climate emergency and other dimensions of the current global environmental crisis, the world is facing an agroecology transition aimed at scaling up the best sustainable ways of farming into circular agri-food... more
In response to the climate emergency and other dimensions of the current global environmental crisis, the world is facing an agroecology transition aimed at scaling up the best sustainable ways of farming into circular agri-food territories. No one knows, however, in advance, how they will perform. To explore several feasible, viable, and desirable future scenarios for these agroecological territories, we have developed a nonlinear programming model called Sustainable Agroecological Farm Reproductive Analysis as a bottom-up deliberative tool. In this article, we use it to explore the sustainable degrees of trade openness of these bio-economically circular territories by evaluating the advantages and limitations of conceiving them from an interdependent network of basically self-sufficient areas rather than as autarkic islands. Using SAFRA optimizations in a Catalan case study, applied as a preliminary test, we found that autarkic self-sufficiency would reduce the food supply capacit...
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The English Agricultural Revolution began during a period of climate change in which temperatures decreased significantly. Lower temperatures meant less bacterial activity, a slower release of mineral nitrogen into cultivated soils, and a... more
The English Agricultural Revolution began during a period of climate change in which temperatures decreased significantly. Lower temperatures meant less bacterial activity, a slower release of mineral nitrogen into cultivated soils, and a shorter growing season for crops—a combination that tended to diminish yields. The English farmers reacted by increasing the flow of organic matter and manure into the soil, thus mitigating the negative effect of the colder temperatures to some extent. When the temperatures rose again, the faster mineralization of soil organic matter led to bountiful yields that encouraged English farmers to continue with these innovative strategies. The upshot is that the English agricultural revolution was more a discovery than an invention, that the English agricultural revolution was more a discovery than an invention, induced by a combination of climate challenges, social and institutional settings, and market incentives.
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Along the last century there has been an unprecedented growth in both global food production and related socioecological impacts. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effects of long-term metabolic patterns of agrarian systems on... more
Along the last century there has been an unprecedented growth in both global food production and related socioecological impacts. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effects of long-term metabolic patterns of agrarian systems on land use and cover changes (LUCC). We have developed an Energy-Landscape Integrated Analysis (ELIA) of agroecosystems to measure the energy storage (E) and the information (I) represented by the complexity of internal energy cycles, in order to correlate both with the energy imprint in the landscape functional-structure (L) that sustains biodiversity. ELIA values are used to assess the agro-ecological landscape transitions in different case studies analysed in North America (Canada and USA) and Europe (Austria and Spain), demonstrating their sensitivity and robustness for case study comparisons on farm-driven environmental change. The results show two stages of the socio-metabolic transition: a first period (from 1830 to 1956) characterized by a non-significant decrease in energy reinvestment (E) and a decrease in energy redistribution (I); and a second period (from 1956 to 2000) with a significant loss of E·I optimal values and associated landscape patterns (L). To overcome the socioecological degradation that these trends implied requires a low external input strategy based on an innovative enhancement of cultural knowledge kept by rural populations, which may help to empower farm communities in the markets and in the public arena. Further research could help to reveal how and why different strategies of agroecosystem management lead to key turning points in the relationship between energy flows, landscape functioning and biodiversity. This research will be very useful for public policies aimed to promote more climate and socioecological resilience of agricultural landscapes and food systems worldwide.
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Mallorca keeps an age-old biocultural heritage embodied in their appealing landscapes, largely exploited as an intangible tourist asset. Although hotel and real estate investors ignore or despise the peasant families who still persevere... more
Mallorca keeps an age-old biocultural heritage embodied in their appealing landscapes, largely exploited as an intangible tourist asset. Although hotel and real estate investors ignore or despise the peasant families who still persevere in farming amidst this worldwide-known tourist hotspot, the Balearic Autonomous Government has recently started a pay-for-ecosystem-services scheme based on the tourist eco-tax collection that offers grants to farmers that keep the Majorcan cultural landscapes alive, while a growing number of them have turned organic. How has this peasant heritage survived within such a global tourist capitalist economy? We answer this question by explaining the socio-ecological transition experienced from the failure of agrarian capitalism in the island, and the ensuing peasantization process during the first half of the 20th century through a local banking-driven and market-oriented land reform. Then, the early tourist specialization during the second half of the 2...