TY - JOUR
T1 - Risk management in traditional agriculture
T2 - intercropping in Italian wine production
AU - Federico, Giovanni
AU - Lasheras, Pablo Martinelli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2024/5/1
Y1 - 2024/5/1
N2 - In this paper, we provide an economic interpretation of intercropping as a risk management strategy based on spatial diversification of production. We study vine intercropping, i.e., the scattering of vines across fields rather than concentrating them in specialized vineyards, a traditional practice in Italian agriculture. We argue that, in the absence of developed financial markets, spatial diversification provided a third layer of insurance for peasants operating in traditional agrarian economies, distinct from and in addition to crop diversification at the farm level and risk sharing through tenancy contracts at the estate level. Spatial diversification increased production costs, particularly transportation costs. Therefore, the price of this form of insurance (and the likelihood of its adoption) depended critically on rural settlement patterns. We test our model with data from Italy in the 1930s, when intercropping still prevailed in many areas of the country. We show that its adoption was positively related to the pattern of scattered dwellings that dated back to the late Middle Ages and reduced transportation costs to individual plots. The mass exodus from the countryside during the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s made intercropping no longer viable.
AB - In this paper, we provide an economic interpretation of intercropping as a risk management strategy based on spatial diversification of production. We study vine intercropping, i.e., the scattering of vines across fields rather than concentrating them in specialized vineyards, a traditional practice in Italian agriculture. We argue that, in the absence of developed financial markets, spatial diversification provided a third layer of insurance for peasants operating in traditional agrarian economies, distinct from and in addition to crop diversification at the farm level and risk sharing through tenancy contracts at the estate level. Spatial diversification increased production costs, particularly transportation costs. Therefore, the price of this form of insurance (and the likelihood of its adoption) depended critically on rural settlement patterns. We test our model with data from Italy in the 1930s, when intercropping still prevailed in many areas of the country. We show that its adoption was positively related to the pattern of scattered dwellings that dated back to the late Middle Ages and reduced transportation costs to individual plots. The mass exodus from the countryside during the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s made intercropping no longer viable.
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U2 - 10.1093/ereh/head017
DO - 10.1093/ereh/head017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85192979493
SN - 1361-4916
VL - 28
SP - 193
EP - 224
JO - European Review of Economic History
JF - European Review of Economic History
IS - 2
ER -