La compra silenciosa. Arrendamientos, estabilidad y mejoras en la agricultura valenciana de regadío (1850-1930)

In the 19th century, Eastern Spanish “huertas” witnessed a dramatic growth and intensification of their output, which was achieved by means of an agrarian development model based on a peasant economy and the cash renting of small plots. This paper looks at characteristics and longrun implications of that model. On the one hand, tenants were able throughout the second half of the century to remain on their farms for an increasingly longer period, and often they were eventually reimbursed by the improvements they had introduced. Because of that, agrarian production increased and improved, what allowed landlords to obtain a higher rent. But, on the other, landlords lost capacity to control and manage the tenant holdings. As a result, tenant farmers consolidated their position, becoming first “semi-owners” of the land they cultivated and, very often, legal proprietors afterwards. KEY Classification-JEL: N53, Q15, R14