The shadow of tropical agriculture: Energy transition of Colombian trade-driven agriculture in the 20th century

IF 6.6 2区经济学 Q1 ECOLOGY

Ecological Economics Pub Date : 2025-02-14 DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108541

A. Urrego-Mesa , J. Infante-Amate , E. Tello

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Agrarian transformations in tropical regions, driven by fossil-fuel inputs and export-oriented specialization, have caused significant ecological and climatic challenges. Assessing the historical and current patterns of these systems is essential for understanding global biomass production dynamics and addressing their impacts. This study employs long-term agroecological energy analysis (AEA) to examine the efficiency and sustainability of biomass production during the transition from traditional-organic to intensive-conventional systems. While AEA has primarily focused on temperate agriculture in developed regions, this study presents a case of tropical export-oriented farming, analyzing the socio-ecological transition of Colombian agriculture from 1915 to 2015 at an annual resolution, covering crops, livestock, and forestry.

We quantify bioeconomic and agroecological energy flows and returns, providing a chronological examination through structural break analysis and comparisons with temperate agriculture. Findings reveal early energy gains linked to crop share increases and initial intensification under extensive livestock and coffee expansion. However, as tropical agriculture intensified and re-entered global markets, energy returns declined sharply. This shift began in the 1980s and accelerated after the early 2000s, marking a distinct transition from patterns observed in temperate regions. This transition from land-intensive to energy-intensive agriculture provides a valuable long-term perspective on the challenges and dynamics of tropical farming systems.

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来源期刊

Ecological Economics 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

12.00

自引率

5.70%

发文量

313

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： Ecological Economics is concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature''s household" (ecosystems) and "humanity''s household" (the economy). Ecological economics is an interdisciplinary field defined by a set of concrete problems or challenges related to governing economic activity in a way that promotes human well-being, sustainability, and justice. The journal thus emphasizes critical work that draws on and integrates elements of ecological science, economics, and the analysis of values, behaviors, cultural practices, institutional structures, and societal dynamics. The journal is transdisciplinary in spirit and methodologically open, drawing on the insights offered by a variety of intellectual traditions, and appealing to a diverse readership. Specific research areas covered include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, ecologically integrated technology, integrated ecologic-economic modelling at scales from local to regional to global, implications of thermodynamics for economics and ecology, renewable resource management and conservation, critical assessments of the basic assumptions underlying current economic and ecological paradigms and the implications of alternative assumptions, economic and ecological consequences of genetically engineered organisms, and gene pool inventory and management, alternative principles for valuing natural wealth, integrating natural resources and environmental services into national income and wealth accounts, methods of implementing efficient environmental policies, case studies of economic-ecologic conflict or harmony, etc. New issues in this area are rapidly emerging and will find a ready forum in Ecological Economics.