Agricultural Resilience In Lombardy. How it Supported Economic Growth in the 19th and 20th Century.

Has the agricultural system, and in particular that of Lombardy, been able to face reforms and epochal changes? And if so, in which forms and with which outcomes? The book deals with the complex challenge of reconstructing some moments of transformation of Lombard agriculture, capturing the factors of resilience and not only those of stagnation. From the end of the eighteenth century, during the Austrian and French dominations, the Lombard agricultural world, faced with the effects of legislative reforms and production crises, experienced an ability of the system to adapt to change and, then, to renew itself in terms of crops, contractual relationships and social aspects but also new sectors linked to industry or services. Despite the long-term conservation of economic and social relations, one part of Lombard agriculture was able to seize renewal opportunities. This connotation is kept alive throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is closely linked to the role of some institutions and social groups that were particularly active in the dissemination of agronomic knowledge, technical innovation and management of private and collective resources.