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Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Economics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon

Analysis

The social metabolism of biomass in Spain, 19002008: From food to


feed-oriented changes in the agro-ecosystems
David Soto a,, Juan Infante-Amate b, Gloria I. Guzmn b, Antonio Cid b, Eduardo Aguilera b,
Roberto Garca c, Manuel Gonzlez de Molina b
a
b
c

Agroecosystems History Lab, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Carretera de Utrera km 1 sn, Seville, 41013, Spain
Agroecosystems History Lab, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain
Animal Biology Department, Jan University, Spain

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 April 2015
Received in revised form 18 January 2016
Accepted 3 April 2016
Available online 6 May 2016
Keywords:
Social metabolism
Agro-ecosystems
Net Primary Productivity (NPP)
Biomass
Spain
material ow analysis

a b s t r a c t
The main aim of this article is to reconstruct the main biomass ows and indicators for the Spanish agriculture
between 1900 and 2008. We reconstruct the Net Primary Productivity for Spanish agro-ecosystems, but also
the main Economy-Wide/material ow accounting indicators as Domestic Extraction of biomass, Physical Balance Trade PTB) and Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) of biomass in Spain. The main results shows that
the transition from agrarian to industrial metabolism has meant a decrease in the per capita consumption of biomass. However, in absolute terms, the consumption of biotic materials has also increased considerably. This has
been due to the changes in the functionality of biomass for social metabolism as a whole: it has gone from being
the main source of energy and materials to specializing in two essential functions, the provision of raw materials
for industry and the supply of food. The Spanish case conrms that the industrialization of agriculture has led to
an increase in pressure on the Spanish agro-ecosystems. But there has also been a transfer of pressure on agroecosystems of other countries through international trade. Spain is a net biomass importer in order to maintain
a diet that is ever richer in meat and dairy products.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Very few papers have been published analyzing the production of
biomass and its role in the wider economy from a biophysical point of
view. Their spatial scale has been the nation state and they have studied
the current situation, without a historical perspective. Some of these papers have attempted to adapt Social Metabolism methodology to agriculture (Risku-Norja, 1999; Risku-Norja and Menp, 2007).
Estimates have also been made of the metabolism of the food system
(Wirsenius, 2003) and the agro-food system (Heller and Keoleian,
2003; Infante-Amate et al., 2014a) and the global and continental
ows of biomass have been analyzed (Krausmann et al., 2008), but
none of these papers have studied the role and functionality of biomass
in the transition towards an industrial metabolic regime. Most of the
studies of socio-ecological transition in its historical dimension and on
nation state scale analyze Social Metabolism globally, with no specic
analysis of agriculture. (Schandl and Schulz, 2002; Krausmann et al.,
2009; Kovanda and Hak, 2011; Krausmann et al., 2011; Gierlinger and
Krausmann, 2011; Singh et al., 2012; Infante-Amate et al., 2015). Only
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dsotfer@upo.es (D. Soto), jinfama@upo.es (J. Infante-Amate),
giguzcas@upo.es (G.I. Guzmn), ajcid@upo.es (A. Cid), emagufer@upo.es (E. Aguilera),
rgarcia@ujaen.es (R. Garca), mgonnav@upo.es (M. Gonzlez de Molina).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.017
0921-8009/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

one paper, from Czechoslovakia, analyses the changes in soil use and
the energy transition in agriculture between 1830 and 2000 (Kusova
et al., 2008).
The main conclusion shown by these papers is that there has been a
progressive fall in the quantitative and qualitative weighting of biomass
in Domestic Extraction (DE) and in Domestic Consumption of materials
per capita (DMC) during the transition and an increased consumption of
abiotic materials (Krausmann et al., 2009). In general, the transition has
meant a considerable increase in per capita consumption of materials
and, at the same time, a reduction in the consumption per inhabitant
of biomass over the 20th century (a 14% reduction worldwide). Recent
estimates, though, of the use of materials in the world from 1900 to
2009 show that although biomass has reduced its relative weighting
within the consumption of materials very signicantly, in absolute
terms it has been growing constantly (Krausmann et al., 2009). Domestic Extraction of biomass grew by 285% in absolute terms in the world
during the 20th century, a not insignicant increase, but less than the
growth in the Domestic Extraction of abiotic materials. The rate of
change has varied greatly in the different countries for which longterm studies are available (Krausmann, 2011).
However, and with exceptions (Krausmann, 2011), we do not have
data on the effect that these trends have had on agro-ecosystems. The
purpose of this article is, therefore, to analyze the evolution of the
ows of terrestrial biomass (we have not considered sheries) in

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

Spain in the 20th century and the change in the functionality of biomass
within the social metabolism of a developed country which was a late
joiner in the process of industrialization. But this paper also attempts
to demonstrate the changes that have occurred in Spanish agroecosystems during the industrialization of the agrarian sector. These
changes have mainly been studied locally (Krausmann, 2004;
Gonzlez de Molina and Guzmn, 2006; Cunfer and Krausmann, 2009;
Garrabou and Gonzlez de Molina, 2010; Garca Ruiz et al., 2012; Tello
et al., 2012; Infante-Amate, 2014), and so it is useful to know their importance and signicance on a more aggregated scale, at nation state
level. It is well known that this agricultural industrialization process
has generated problems of sustainability related to the increase in
human pressure on ecosystems (Smil, 2013). In this regard, the analysis
of the historical evolution of ows of biomass is of particular interest for
the design of new processes of transition towards more sustainable agriculture (Gonzlez de Molina, 2010). The case of Spain offers the added
interest of a Mediterranean model of agriculture with specic characteristics which distinguish it from the Atlantic and Central European cases
studied to date.
2. Concepts, Methods and Data Sources
2.1. Concepts and Methods
The methodology used in this paper is an adaptation of EconomyWide Material Flow Accounting, a well-known methodology that has
proved to be a powerful tool for demonstrating the biophysical relationships between territories, describing the consumption of resources, the
means of appropriation of those resources and for describing socioecological transitions. However, its adaptation to agriculture and, specifically, to the analysis of biomass ows raises problems that have obliged
us to introduce certain modications into the methodology and to
complement it with some supplementary calculations which clearly
establish the different uses of the biomass from the productive and reproductive point of view. The main problem with the standard methodology is that it considers part of the produce as fresh matter and another
part (mainly pasture and forage plants) as dry matter (EUROSTAT, 2015.
We have opted to consider all of the different types of biomass as dry
matter, as is the usual practice in specic studies of agriculture
(Krausmann et al., 2008; Smil, 2013), in order to avoid the distortions
produced by the varying water content values of the different types of
biomass, above all, pasture and crops (between 15% and 95%). This consideration, furthermore, is necessary when studying, as is our case, the
evolution of agricultural production in which the crops with a higher
water content have become more relevant (for example, horticultural
production), to the detriment of others with a lower water content (cereal and leguminous crops). This change is also necessary when studying a country with a semi-arid climate, where irrigation has had a
decisive role in its evolution and, therefore, in the water content of its
crops. Nevertheless, we also offer the results using standard methodology (EW-MFA) to enable comparison with the evolution observed in
other countries.
To give an overall idea of the changes seen in Spanish agroecosystems, we have estimated the evolution of the net primary
productivity (NPP) of these agro-ecosystems from 1900 to 2008. We
take NPP to be the amount of net energy incorporated into plant tissues
(increase in accumulated biomass) and it is the result of the opposed
processes of photosynthesis and respiration. In contrast with other
methodological approaches (Schandl et al., 2002; Imhoff et al., 2004;
Haberl et al., 2007; Smil, 2013) which only take into account the
harvested, reused or utile biomass, we have also taken into account
the root biomass, the biomass accumulated over time in woody species,
together with unharvested biomass.
NPP is the result of adding the plant biomass which is directly appropriated by society (Socialised Vegetal Biomass, SVB), the biomass that is
recirculated through the agro-ecosystem either by intentional

131

reincorporation (Reused Biomass, RuB) or simply by abandonment


(Un-harvested Biomass, UB), and the biomass accumulated annually
(Accumulated Biomass, AB) in the aerial structure (trunk and crown)
and in the roots of perennial species in pastureland, forest and cropland.
We have not applied any correction factor to consider biomass losses
due to pests, litterfall, etc. in the estimation of NPP (Smil, 2013). We account for NPP at the time of harvest. The reason for doing this is because
there is only general and arbitrary percentage of these losses in literature and the degree of uncertainty is high. In addition when calculating
NPP in historical perspective there are enormous differences between
past and present values in application of herbicides and pesticides or between cropland and grassland or between warm and cold regions. A
more detailed description of this methodology and of the reasons
which justify this procedure can be found in Guzmn et al. (2014).
All of these portions of the NPP of the Spanish agro-ecosystems have
been accounted for in this study (Fig. 1), and so we consider that:
NPP SVB RuB UB AB
We have also taken into account other categories essential for the
analysis of biomass ows. We have used some basic EW-MFA categories
such as Domestic Extraction (DE) and the impact on apparent consumption of the results of overseas trade (imports and exports) calculating
the Physical Trade Balance (PTB) and Domestic Material Consumption
(DMC). In this way:
DE SVB RuB
PTB ImportsExports
DMC DE PTB

2.2. Data Sources


The main sources used in our study are the statistics provided by the
Spanish government, with different quality and frequency from 1900 to
2008, which provide information at regular periods of times from 1900
to 2008, to maintain coherence over the entire period, since the FAO
does not provide data between 1900 and 1960 (FAOSTAT, 2015). We
have reconstructed the evolution of total biomass production from the
construction of twelve points in time between 1900 and 2008. The statistical information refers to fresh matter and so a signicant task of
reviewing the available literature has been necessary in order to ascertain its dry matter content, using both Spanish and international sources
and research papers (Guzmn et al., 2014).
We have data on yields, crop areas and production for 1900 and
1910 for the main crops (cereals, legumes, Olive orchards, vineyards)
and, in 1922, the rst complete statistics for agrarian production were
published. Annual data of total Spanish agricultural production (GEHR,
1991; Carreras and Tafunell, 2005) is available from 1929 onwards.1
From these sources, we have calculated the harvests of primary crops
using ve-year means of yields, estimating some products for 1900
(mainly fruit and vegetables and forage crops) by means of linear
regression.
To calculate the reused biomass, we used the amount of straw of cereals and legumes with an economic use which is provided by the yearbooks. As these sources refer to the amount of straw used by society, to
calculate the amount of straw produced, which is essential in order to
calculate the NPP, we used specic crop indices (Guzmn et al., 2014).
For the residues of woody crops, we used specic converters with chronological variations which take into account different variables such as
the age, density, rate of pruning and irrigation of the plants (InfanteAmate et al., 2014b). For all other residues (fruit and vegetables, industrial crops and others) we used xed converters (Guzmn et al., 2014).
1
The Spanish Agrarian Yearbooks are available online: http://www.magrama.gob.es/
es/estadistica/temas/publicaciones/anuario-de-estadistica/. Accessed 2 April 2015.

132

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

Fig. 1. Spain NPP a) Land uses (000 ha). b) Origin of NPPact in Mt. dm. Sources: see Data Sources section.

Until after 1940, there is no evidence of the burning of residues in Spain.


We have supposed that the practice of burning residues began after
1950, gradually growing until it reached its peak in 1970. Since the legislation in 1990 which restricted the burning of residues, the practice
has reduced signicantly. We have used data from the National Emissions Inventory (Inventario Nacional de Emisiones) to calculate the percentage of residue burnt before and after 1990 (MARM, 2008).
Neither Spanish statistics nor FAO gures offer information about
the production of pasture biomass or about the biomass grazed by livestock. We have calculated the NPP of pastureland on the basis of studies
which provide information about three provinces which correspond to
3 different agro-climatic models (Centro de Investigacin y Formacin
Agrarias de Cantabria, 2007; San Miguel Ayanz, 2009; Correal et al.,
2007) and which are representative of the three large agro-climatic regions of Spain. We have related this data on productivity per hectare to
the evolution of land use broken down to provincial scale for the entire
period. To calculate the amount of biomass really grazed, we used an animal food balance model similar to that used in other research work
(Krausmann et al., 2008). We calculated, rstly, the food needs of livestock on the basis of livestock censuses and, secondly, we calculated
the availability of food for the livestock from the crops and residues, as
well as food coming from overseas trade. The biomass grazed is the difference between the availability of food from the crops and from trade
and the amount required to feed the livestock. We have also systemized
the main livestock farming production for trading purposes, such as
meat, milk and eggs, in order to calculate the availability of food on
the basis of FAO food balance methodology (Gonzlez de Molina et al.,
2013; Gonzlez de Molina et al., 2014).
For fuel and wood, homogenous, serial data is only available from
1960 onwards. Before this date, we have had to make several estimates
(Iriarte Goi, 2013; Infante-Amate et al., 2014b). We have estimated the
extraction of wood assuming that extraction is equal to consumption
(for which we have serial data since the 19th century) minus exports,
plus imports. We have calculated fuel wood extraction on the basis of
the systematization and homogenization of the evolution of land use
at provincial scale. From there, we have applied yield per hectare data
which takes into account regional variability and the historical changes
in the production of the forest. To do this, different Spanish sources
were systematically reviewed. The calculation of the Forest NPP must
take into account, furthermore, the accumulated biomass NPP of the forests throughout the entire period. To this end, we have applied the
available data since the 1960s contained in the National Forestry Inventories to land use (Infante-Amate et al., 2014b) and we have applied a
partition coefcient to calculate the annual production of the biomass
of foliage and reproductive structures (owers and fruits) in order to account for the total aerial NPP of the forest, taking the holm oak as a
model (Almoguera Milln, 2007).
Most of the estimates of NPP have considered only the aerial biomass
without taking into account the root biomass, giving rise to criticism of

the currently available estimates of the HANPP (Smil, 2013). In our calculation, we make estimates of the belowground biomass on the basis of
a compilation of specic converters for different crops, pasture and forests trees (Guzmn et al., 2014). Likewise, part of the NPP of agroecosystems is not cultivated, but is part of the adventitious ora which
escapes the control of the farmer. For a long-term analysis, it is of
great importance to count this biomass. Though in today's agriculture
this biomass is very scarce owing to the use of herbicides, in traditional
agriculture it was very signicant, playing a relevant role in the functioning of agro-ecosystems. To calculate this biomass in traditional
agrarian systems, we have used data from trials in organic agriculture
and, for more recent times, data from conventional agriculture
(Guzmn et al., 2014).
To calculate the DMC, we have considered all of the exports and imports of primary and transformed biomass. As in other sections, we have
used ve-year means. In the case of overseas trade, we have continuous
series for the entire period, although the methodology used and the categorization available have varied signicantly over the years. Between
2000 and 2008, we used the DATACOMEX database of Spanish overseas
trade (Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad, 2015). For 1960 and
1990, we used the FAO database (FAOSTAT, 2015). Lastly, for the period
from 1900 to 1950, we used overseas trade statistics for Spain.2 We distinguished it between ve categories: food, feed, seeds, wood and fuel
wood, and other raw materials.

3. Results
3.1. NPP and Domestic Extraction of Biomass
Fig. 1 shows the evolution of land use. Cropland area increased 1.25
times from 1900 (16.5 Mha) to 1933 (20.0 Mha), decreased during
Spanish Civil War and increased again up to 21 Mha in 1970 (Fig. 1a).
Onward cropland area has fallen down to 17 Mha. All of the land uses
grouped under Forestlands, have increased by 33% along the studied period. The increase seen in closed forest is notable, with its area almost
tripling. All of these have been mainly due to the reduction of pastureland area (23%) and of cropland in recent times (17% since 1970).
This reduction is closely related to the discontinuation of agricultural
and livestock farming activity which has affected 6 million ha of pastureland and cropland from the sixties. The decline in cropland surface
has been compatible with a more intensive use of it. Thus the use of
chemical fertilizers has increased signicantly over time, from 0.5 to
51.2 kg/ha of N between 1900 and 2008 and from 1.2 to 21.8 P2O5 on
the same dates. The growth of chemical fertilizers between 1900 and
2
The original Trade Yearbooks are available online at the Ministerio de Economa y
Competitividad. website: http://www4.mityc.es/BibliotecaCOM/abwebp.exe. Accessed
April 3, 2015.

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

1933 was led by phosphoric fertilizers, while after 1960 the industrialization of agriculture made nitrogen fertilizers to grow faster (see Supplementary data).
Seen as a whole, NPP grew moderately between 1900 and 2008
(28%), although its components showed varied behavior. There was a
greater increase in cropland areas (57%) and forests (42%) but an increase of only 8% in pastureland (Fig. 1b). This means that human pressure increased, especially on cultivated cropland, increasing the
production of biomass. It should be borne in mind that the cropland
area hardly grew between 1900 and 2008. On forest land, on the other
hand, the increase was due to more productive use of the land, the increase in the area of forest land and the abandonment of many traditional modes of forest exploitation. The comparatively small rise in the
NPP of pastureland is explained, rstly, by the reduction of the area devoted to this use and, secondly, and contradictorily, by the abandonment and underuse of pastureland in Spain.
The Domestic Extraction of biomass (Fig. 2a) grew over the period
by 38%, somewhat higher than growth in NPP (28%). This explains
why the percentage of DE within total NPP produced by Spanish agroecosystems has hardly changed (from 20.2% in 1900 to 21.8% in 2008).
The period of maximum relative extraction was in the 1950s, coinciding
with the end of traditional agriculture (23.9%).
The breakdown of the analysis also shows, in this case, signicant
changes. The growth in Domestic Extraction was concentrated in primary crops, rising by 236% with respect to 1900, as against a small 8%
growth in residues. Nevertheless, pasture was reduced by 46% and forests by 17%. This evolution shows that there has been a very signicant
change in the different uses of the biomass over the period studied,
which has favored primary crops above other uses. In this regard, it
can be said that the industrialization of agriculture has led to a signicant increase in the biomass produced but, above all, to a concentration
of the biomass extracted from primary crops. Total Domestic Extraction
has risen from 33% of the NPP of crops to 50% in 2008. Cereals, olives, industrial crops and articial meadowland and forage are the crops that
have grown most over the period studied. This is the biophysical translation of the specialization seen in the Spanish agrarian sector in livestock, fruit and vegetable and olive oil production.
There have also been important changes in the nal destination of
Domestic Extraction (Fig. 2b). The biomass used for human foodstuffs
has risen from 9% in 1900 to 14% in 2008. Something similar has occurred in the use of biomass as raw material (for industrial uses, excluding wood), which went from 1% in 1900 to 4% today. The most
signicant change, however, has been seen in the extracted biomass
used for animal feed. In 1900, it represented 56% of the biomass extracted, which is logical bearing in mind that most agricultural work was
done with draft animals. In 2008, this percentage had risen to 57.5%,
having reached its peak in 1960, when almost it reached almost two
thirds of the biomass extracted. Since that decade, even though draft animals are no longer used, around 40 million tons of dry matter has been

133

used as animal feed for livestock destined exclusively to the production


of meat and dairy products.
Domestic Extraction for wood and fuel wood, on the other hand, fell
considerably from 32% in 1900 to 21% in 2008. This was due, above all, to
the fall in the weighting of biomass used for energy, the result of the arrival of gas in Spanish homes. However, the reduction in the use of fuel
wood, especially that from forest areas, has been partly compensated by
the use of wood as a raw material. This data is coherent with the increase in the forestland area mentioned above.

3.2. Trade and Consumption


The importance of the overseas trade in biomass has increased very
signicantly, much more in relative terms than Domestic Extraction
(Table 1. In percentages in Supplementary data). Total imports rose
from 773 kt to 31,929 kt between 1900 and 2008, and exports from
314 kt to 12,672 kt. However, this growth has not been continuous
over the century. Until the 1960s, the weighting of overseas trade was
small, and it even fell after 1933, but from 1970 onwards, there was
sharp growth which has still not remitted. There has also been a significant change in its composition: until the 1960s, most biomass exports
were found in the human foodstuffs category and they tended to diversify after that decade. Today, the main export categories are wood (especially) and fuel wood, followed by human foodstuffs and animal
feed. As regards imports, until 1933 almost half were wood, while the
main category between 1940 and 1960 was human foodstuffs. Since
1970, imports of animal feed increased to almost half of the total
imported biomass (42%).
Contrary to what may be thought, Spain has not been an agricultural
exporter in the 20th century from a physical point of view. The PTB
shows that the opposite is truethat it has been a net importer of biomass during the entire period studied (Fig. 3a). Only in some of the
years between 1900 and 1970 did the country export more than it
imported in the category of foodstuffs for human consumption. Likewise, the weighting of the PTB was relatively insignicant in the
1960s. The evolution of the biomass DMC in Spain has paralleled that
of Domestic Extraction between 1900 and 1960 (Fig. 3b). PTB as a percentage of DMC has varied over these years between 0.9% and 2.4%
(with an extreme value of 0.1% in 1950). Since 1970, however, the
role of overseas trade in biomass DMC has grown, rising from 6.2% in
that year to 22.2% in 2008. The greater trading integration of Spain
over the last 40 years therefore explains why biomass DMC has grown
at a much greater rate than Domestic Extraction. DMC grew by 74% between 1900 and 2008, compared with growth of 38% in Domestic Extraction. The main destination has been animal feed (between 54%
and 63% over the entire period) but, as occurred in the case of Domestic
Extraction, the percentage weighting of human foodstuffs has grown
and that of wood and fuel wood has fallen.

Fig. 2. Domestic Extraction of biomass in Spain a) DE in Mt. dm. b) Uses of Domestic Extraction in Mt. dm. Sources: See Data Sources section.

134

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

Table 1
Spain. Trade (Mt. dry matter).
1900

1910

1922

1933

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2008

Imports (vegetal origin)


Food
Feed
Seeds
Wood and fuel wood
Raw materials
Total

0,1
0,1
0,0
0,4
0,2
0,8

0,1
0,2
0,0
0,4
0,2
0,8

0,2
0,3
0,0
0,3
0,3
1,2

0,1
0,1
0,0
0,5
0,3
1,0

0,5
0,2
0,1
0,1
0,1
0,9

0,2
0,1
0,0
0,1
0,1
0,5

0,7
0,6
0,1
0,5
0,3
2,2

0,6
3,0
0,0
1,3
0,3
5,3

1,1
6,9
0,1
1,9
0,5
10,5

2,8
5,6
0,1
5,2
0,6
14,3

4,4
10,4
0,4
9,6
1,4
26,2

6,3
13,3
0,6
9,8
2,0
31,9

Exports (vegetal origin)


Food
Feed
Seeds
Wood and fuel wood
Raw materials
Total
Phisical Trade Balance (PTB)

0,1
0,0
0,0
0,1
0,1
0,3
0,5

0,2
0,0
0,0
0,1
0,1
0,4
0,5

0,2
0,1
0,0
0,1
0,1
0,5
0,7

0,3
0,0
0,0
0,1
0,0
0,4
0,6

0,1
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,2
0,7

0,4
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,0
0,5
0,0

0,5
0,1
0,0
0,1
0,0
0,6
1,6

0,9
0,2
0,0
0,3
0,1
1,5
3,8

1,1
0,3
0,0
1,1
0,3
2,8
7,6

1,9
1,4
0,1
1,8
0,3
5,4
8,9

3,7
1,4
0,1
4,4
0,4
9,9
16,3

4,0
1,9
0,1
6,2
0,5
12,7
19,3

Sources: see Data Sources section.

Until the late 1960s, the DE and DMC evolved together but, as from
the 1970s, consumption grew more and faster than DE, thanks to growing biomass imports for animal feed. In other words, biomass consumption in Spain depended on DE until the late 1960s. From then on, it
began to depend more and more on imports. Today, Spanish biomass
consumption represents a considerable proportion, 27.6%, of NPP, but
part is in fact extracted in other countries, bearing in mind that DE represents 21.8% of the NPP produced by Spanish agro-ecosystems.
However, per capita consumption has fallen, both from the point of
view of EW-MFA methodology, this is the DMC/cap (Fig. 5b), and
from the point of view of biomass directly consumed by society, excluding reused biomass. (Fig. 3c). Between 1900 and 2008, direct consumption by society of plant and animal biomass (that is, without reuse in
agro-ecosystems) fell by 32%, from 1.2 to 0.7 tons, a rate similar to

that of per capita DMC (Fig. 5b). In this case, the evolution has not
been linear. Between 1900 and 1970, per capita consumption fell.
From 1970 to 2000, it grew as a result of the increased imports and
the consumption of foods of animal origin, but fell between 2000 and
2008. However, if we break down the different categories which make
up the consumption of plant and animal biomass, evolution has been
very uneven. Per capita consumption of wood and rewood has declined, while consumption of biomass as raw materials for industrial
uses has grown. But the most signicant growth in consumption per
capita has happened in biomass for foo.
The latter can also be seen in the evolution of the Spanish food balance (Fig. 3d). Food balance gures show a very signicant fall between
1933 and 1960, due to the agricultural policy applied during the dictatorship of Franco. From the 1970s onwards, there was a signicant

Fig. 3. Trade and consumption of Biomass in Spain. a) PTB in Mt. dm. b) DMC in Mt. dm. c) Direct consumption per capita of plant and animal biomass by society in t dm. d) Net Food
Balance in kcal/inhab/yr Sources: see Data Sources section.

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

change in diet, and foods of animal origin have become more important
both as a source of calories and of proteins (Lassaletta et al., 2013). The
biomass for human consumption has increased in the entire biomass
consumed, from 0.10 to 0.18 t of DMC. However, this improved efciency in food production is something less than that calculated by Singh
et al. (2012) for India.

3.3. Livestock
The evolution described reects the growing importance of livestock
in the Spanish farming sector. Livestock (Fig. 4a) has grown at a much
higher rate than the domestic availability of feed for the animals
(216% in live weight between 1900 and 2008 against 82% for animal
feed). Consequently, not only has the greater part of Domestic Extraction been devoted to animal feed over the entire period in Spain, but
also of biomass DMC. An analysis of the composition of livestock and
its evolution explains this fundamental change.
As with other variables, livestock does not show linear evolution
over the 20th century. Livestock farming grew by 56% between 1900
and 1933, it stagnated from 1940 to 1960 and livestock breeding
grew rapidly between 1970 and 2008 (by 97%). But there have also
been changes in its composition. Working livestock has practically
disappeared. Pigs and poultry today represent 53% of total livestock
compared with 9% in 1900. Bovine had the same weighting in 2008
as in 1900 (32%), but this data hides a signicant change in the
breeds of cattle, which are today much more specialized in milk
and meat. This specialization process has also fostered a change in
the functionality of cattle. The mixed use breeds, providing both
labor, manure and animal food products, have gradually become
marginal. Likewise, the number of monogastric animals has increased signicantly. These animals depend on high-quality processed feed, unlike species able to feed off pasture land and residues
(sheep, goats, cattle on extensive farms). The transition from an
organic livestock farming to an industrial livestock breeding has
meant an overall increase in feed conversion ratio (% animal product
output / input feed) from 1.3 to 7.9 between 1900 and 2008. This
ratio stands at the average in Western Europe in 2000 (7.8) which,
together with the ratio of Eastern Europe, was the highest in the
world (Krausmann et al., 2008).
The feeding of livestock thus depended mainly on pastureland and
crop residues (45% and 25%) until the 1960s. From then on, it began to
depend on high-quality animal feed from crops and industrial processing (Fig. 4b). Since the 1980s, a growing proportion of this feed has been
imported. In 2008, 48% of animal feed came from Domestic Extraction
Primary Crops and 15% of animal feed came from net imports. Meanwhile, a signicant part of the farming area used was abandoned or
the pastureland was underused, as can be seen from the drastic reduction in the amount of grazed biomass (see Fig. 1a).

135

4. Discussion
4.1. Four Steps of Socio-Ecological Transition
As we have seen, most of the changes in land use and farming
methods took place in the last three decades of the 20th century. Until
the 1960s, the diet of the Spanish people, most of the energy required
for agrarian activity and most of the energy consumed in the home
were linked to the territory, with very little importation of biomass.
Since then, a process of decoupling these functions from Spanish agroecosystems began, a process that is still continuing and which is the result of agro-food globalization. It is still possible, however, to differentiate various moments in the evolution of Domestic Extraction and the
consumption of biomass in Spain over the period which are directly related to the landmarks in the process of transition from organic to industrial agriculture.
Since the beginning of the 20th century and until 1933, the Domestic
Extraction of crops, pastureland and forestry grew in parallel to the increase in livestock. The introduction of chemical fertilizers, especially
phosphoric fertilizers, which made it possible to overcome the structural shortage of nutrients in Mediterranean agriculture (Garrabou and
Gonzlez de Molina, 2010), explains the growth in the DE of primary
crops, without the growth being at the expense of other uses of the territory, as it had occurred in the 19th century. In this period, there was
also a signicant expansion of irrigation, which also undoubtedly had
an inuence on the growth of crops (Gonzlez de Molina, 2001).
A second phase coincided with the Civil War (19361939) and the
rst decades of the Francoist period. This is a period which can only be
explained in terms of the internal situation of the country. The autarchic
economic policy and the international isolation of the Franco regime
meant that the Spanish chemical industry was unable to supply the
chemical fertilizer needs of an agricultural sector which was by then a
habitual user of such products (Christiansen, 2012). This forced a
rebalancing of land use which caused an increase in the DE of pastureland, even though there was less livestock, and, at the same time,
reduced the DE of primary crops as a result of the difculty in
replenishing soil fertility. The result was a dramatic fall in the availability of food per capita which would not be reversed until well into the
1960s.
The third phase, which began in the 1960s, was characterized by the
industrialization of agriculture, the growth of livestock fattening in
feedlots and the concentration of extraction in the cultivated farmland
area. This coincided, and not by chance, with the rapid growth in the
consumption of abiotics and the massive introduction of inputs into
the agrarian sector. A fourth phase appears to arise with the process of
globalization and the increase in biomass imports which began in the
1970s, but which has developed strongly since the turn of the century
and which can be seen in the growing decoupling of extraction from
the domestic consumption de biomass. The rst and third phases are

Fig. 4. a) Spain. Evolution of livestock in kt of live weigth. b) Origin of animal feed (%) Sources: see Data Sources section.

136

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

common to the TSE seen in the agriculture of other European countries,


the second is typical of Spanish sociopolitical dynamics and, in reality,
represents the delayed beginning of the industrialization of Spanish agriculture and the fourth appears to be a tendency shared by agriculture
in all developed countries.
4.2. From Food to Feed-Oriented Changes in the Spanish Agro-Ecosystems
The study of socio-ecological transitions has shown how the accelerated increase in the consumption of materials, both in absolute and per
capita terms, has been possible thanks to the growing extraction of abiotic products. On a world scale, and in accordance with EW-MFA methodology, it was in the late 1950s when the extraction of abiotic materials
came to exceed the extraction of biomass (Krausmann et al., 2009,
2011; Singh et al., 2012; Gierlinger and Krausmann, 2011, InfanteAmate et al., 2015). In countries where industrialization came late, as is
the case of Spain, the growth in the consumption of abiotics has been signicant but also late, increasing sharply since the 1960s (Infante-Amate
et al., 2015). In all cases, socio-ecological transition has been accompanied
by a reduction in the per capita consumption of biomass over the 20th
century (14% worldwide), but not in terms of food availability. Despite
this, the consumption of biomass has continued to grow signicantly,
though at a lower rate than the consumption of abiotics.
In the case of Spain, a paradigm of Mediterranean agriculture, the
general pattern has been followed (Fig. 5a and b). The fall in DE and biomass DMC per capita over the 20th century has been lower than in other
countries such as Japan or the USA, but greater than in the world as a
whole. The reduction in the domestic consumption per capita has not
been the result of a complete substitution of biotic materials by abiotic
materials, but the product of a partial substitution. In fact, the consumption of biomass has increased in absolute terms. However, its metabolic
utility has changed signicantly. Plant biomass has lost part of its energy
function (especially as a source of domestic fuel and as fuel for draft
animals), but it has increased its use as a raw material for industry, especially wood, which is difcult to substitute in many industrial processes (Infante-Amate et al., 2014b). In other words, Spanish agro-

ecosystems have gone from supplying most of the goods and services
required by the Spanish economy to specializing in foodstuffs, both animal and vegetable, and the provision of raw materials for industry. This
explains why Domestic Extraction and, in short, productive effort have
concentrated on primary crops and, to a lesser extent, on forestry production. In this regard, the most signicant transformation that has
been seen in the agro-ecosystems is related to the growing importance
of livestock breeding within the Spanish agrarian sector. There has not
just been a growth in livestock density but also a change in the species
and breeds kept for human food production. Changes in consumption
habits have been very important in this process, which has led to the
partial abandoning of the Mediterranean diet in favor of diets that are
much richer in animal products. It is important to note that this change
in dietary behavior has occurred precisely when the benets of the
Mediterranean diet against excess meat diets have been recognized
(Rodrguez Artalejo et al., 1996; Nicolau and Pujol, 2011; Gonzlez de
Molina et al., 2013).
In comparative terms, the data shows different metabolic proles of
per capita biomass consumption and trends over the 20th century
(Fig. 5c and d). While per capita consumption varies between 3 and
4 t in Spain (similar gures to the world average), consumption in
Japan is between 1 and 2 while in the USA there is greater variation, between 6 and 10 t. These regional differences are similar to those detected in current studies of biomass consumption levels on a regional scale.
Among the explanations put forward are the availability of land, the
productivity of the land, livestock and population density, trade and income (Krausmann et al., 2008). However, the data also demonstrates
the growing importance of international trade in domestic consumption
patterns in recent decades. Countries such as Spain, net biomass importers, have increasingly sustained their consumption thanks to
trade. The case of Japan is even more evident, as it has increased its
per capita DMC for biomass, even though it started from very low consumption levels.
In effect, an increasingly signicant portion of biomass consumption
since 1970 has taken place through imports, and so there is a progressive decoupling of production and biomass consumption. This

Fig. 5. Role of biomass in the social metabolism. a) Spain. DMC in Mt. (EW-MFA Methodology).b) Spain. DMC per capita in t/inhab/yr (EW-MFA Methodology). c) DE per capita of biomass
in some countries (EW-MFA Methodology). d) DMC of Biomass in some Countries in t/inhab/yr (EW-MFA Methodology). Sources: Spain (Infante-Amate et al., 2015); Japan (Krausmann
et al., 2011); India (Singh et al., 2012); USA (Gierlinger and Krausmann, 2011); World (Krausmann et al., 2009).

D. Soto et al. / Ecological Economics 128 (2016) 130138

phenomenon is coherent with the data obtained by research into the


evolution of the nitrogen cycle in Spain between 1961 and 2010,
which has demonstrated the growing dependence of Spanish livestock
breeding on imported proteins, especially from Latin America
(Lassaletta et al., 2013) and which can be seen in other developed countries (Wurtenberger et al., 2006; Erb et al., 2009; Witzke and Noleppa,
2010; Dittrich and Bringezu, 2010; Dittrich et al., 2012). The growth of
trade biomass in Spain has been greater than in the world, but a little
later. World trade in biomass increased vefold between 1962 and
2010 (Mayer et al., 2015), while in Spain it did 12 between 1960 and
2008. Spain is currently located in the group of countries that rely on
imports for supply their food needs. This means that the pressure on
Spanish agro-ecosystems has been partly transferred to other agroecosystems, especially in Latin America. This does not mean that the
pressure in absolute terms has reduced or that the health of the agroecosystems has improved: our data shows a growing disarticulation of
agrarian land in Spain, especially since the 1970s, and a concentration
of biomass extraction in cropland and, to a lesser extent, in woodproducing forest land. These changes have been possible as a result of
factors which are exogenous to the agro-ecosystems and, fundamentally, as a result of the growing application of abiotic inputs into agrarian
production which came with the industrialization of agriculture: fossil
fuels for machinery and irrigation, chemical fertilizers and plant
health products (Infante-Amate et al., 2014a). On the other hand,
where they have not simply been abandoned, areas of pastureland
and scrub have been reduced to very limited exploitation (the abandonment of transhumance, the end of the mixed use of cattle and the
increased imports of animal feeds explain this situation). Consequently, a signicant part of Spanish territory has been devoted to
forest uses. This explains the considerable increase in Domestic Extraction of wood and in forest accumulated biomass (although rewood from the forest has decreased). The growth of imports and
the greater pressure on crops have meant that part of the territory
has been removed from agrarian production.

5. Conclusions
The transition from agrarian to industrial metabolism has meant a
very signicant increase in the consumption of abiotic materials, especially in the second half of the 20th century. In parallel, the per capita
consumption of biomass has fallen in general terms. This has not been
due to a complete substitution of biotic materials by abiotic materials,
but only to a partial substitution caused by the replacement of biotic
fuels with fossil fuels for domestic consumption. However, in absolute
terms, the consumption of biotic materials has also increased considerably, though at a lower rate. This has been due to the changes in the
functionality of biomass for social metabolism as a whole: it has gone
from being the main source of energy and materials to specializing in
two essential functions, the provision of raw materials for industry
and the supply of food with a high share of animal products. The case
of Spain, presented in this paper, conrms this behavior, although it
was late, being a Mediterranean country and a late joiner in
industrialization.
The Spanish case also conrms that this absolute increase in the
consumption of biomass, which has been seen in most of the developed countries for which data is available, has supposed an increase
in the biomass DE and, therefore, an increase in pressure on agroecosystems. In Spain, this increase has been concentrated on croplands and, to a lesser degree, on forest land. Nevertheless, DMC has
grown much more than DE thanks to international trade. Spain
shares with other developed countries the fact that it is a net biomass
importer in order to maintain a diet that is ever richer in meat and
dairy products, while much pastureland and some cultivated areas
inland are underused or have been abandoned due to their
unprotability.

137

Acknowledgments
The results of the research contained in this paper was due to the nancial support granted by two organizations: the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada to the research project "Sustainable farm systems: long-term socio-ecological metabolism in western
agriculture", SSHRC 895-2011-1020, and Spanish Ministerio de
Economa y Competitividad to the project Sustainable farm systems
and transitions in agricultural metabolism: social inequality and institutional changes in Spain (1750-2010), HAR2012-38920-C02-01.

Appendix A. Supplementary data


Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.017.

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