Pastures and Cash Crops: Biomass Flows in the Socio-Metabolic Transition of Twentieth-Century Colombian Agriculture

Pastures and Cash Crops: Biomass Flows in the Socio-Metabolic Transition of Twentieth-Century Colombian Agriculture

Background

The authors acknowledge that the appropriation of biomass worldwide has significantly increased over the twentieth century, primarily due to the expansion of industrial agriculture. These trends have caused detrimental issues, including soil erosion, a decline in biodiversity, damage to human health, and deforestation. Using Colombia as a case-study, this article presents a long-term estimation of biomass flows. 

Goals & Methods

The goal of this paper is to provide a biophysical evaluation of agrarian change and to identify the timing and features of unsustainable farming that occured in Colombia between 1915 and 2015. The paper actively choose not to use the common material flow accounting (MFA) approach due to several reasons. Instead, the authors use a unique approach that converts a wide set of indicators from Net Primary Production (NPP) into the final socioeconomic uses of biomass. 

Conclusions & Takeaways

The study found a 10% decrease in net primary product in Colombia that was related to forest conversions. During the time period evaluated, pasute was the most common for domestic extraction. There was also a rise in the production of cash crops for industrial processing while the production of staple crops for consumption was stagnate, which is likely due to cattle and could indicate a new inner frontier of land-use intensification. The authors finally review the following: phases of the socio-metabolic transition of biomass, the changes in biomass flows by looking at the history of the main drivers, and the socio-ecological impacts of deforestation and industrial agribusiness.

Reference: 

Urrego-Mesa A, Infante-Amate J, Tello E. Pastures and Cash Crops: Biomass Flows in the Socio-Metabolic Transition of Twentieth-Century Colombian Agriculture. Sustainability. 2018;11:117. doi:10.3390/su11010117.

Affiliation: 

  • Department of Economic History, Institutions, Policy and World Economy, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  • Agro-ecosystems History Laboratory, Pablo de Olavide University, Sevilla, Spain