The Sierra economy in the transition to liberalism: the development of livestock farming in the Sierra de Cameros (La Rioja) in the 18th and 19th centuries

Abstract

This article provides a description of the development of livestock farming in the Sierras in the South of La Rioja from 1750 to 1865. In contrast to what happened in Spain as a whole, the article shows how, although there was a slight increase in sheep and cattle rearing, the general tendency of livestock farming was very negative, above all because of the collapse of transhumance. It also shows how the figures overall by the Ensenada Land Survey were often seriously inaccurate, which may have given us a distorted picture of the history of Spanish livestock farming.