The introduction and expansion of potato and corn crops in Catalonia

Abstract

The article analyses the introduction and expansion of potato and corn crops in Catalonia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The widespread cultivation of corn posed no major difficulties, but the introduction of potatoes came up against many obstacles. The plants were brought to Europe by Spanish sailors in the sixteenth century, but it was almost 200 years before the establishment of large-scale cultivation. The work of agronomists, along with periodic famines, finally overcame reluctance. In Catalonia, production of the crops from the Americas became fully developed throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.