The development of crop production in Eastern Galicia in 1867–1914

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to analyze the peculiarities of the development of crop production in Eastern Galicia during 1867–1914 under the conditions of the modernization processes of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, to clarify the role of the sector in the empire-wide agricultural market, and to identify the positive and negative trends of its evolution in the context of the socio-economic transformations of contemporary society. Methodology. The methodology of the study is based on a combination of historical-systemic and statistical-comparative approaches to processing archival materials, statistical yearbooks of the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, and the works of Polish and Ukrainian economists and statisticians of the late nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries. A quantitative analysis of the dynamics of sown areas, crop yields, and marketability of the region's main agricultural crops was applied, making it possible to trace the structural changes in the sector over a period of almost half a century. Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty lies in conducting a comprehensive analysis of the development of crop production in Eastern Galicia as an integral phenomenon, combining quantitative indicators (the dynamics of sown areas of grain crops, industrial crops, and potatoes, alongside changes in yields) with a qualitative characterization of the socio-economic factors that hindered the modernization of the sector—namely, the persistence of large manorial (folwark) landownership, agrarian overpopulation, strip farming (cherezsmuzhzhia), in-kind labor payments, and backward agrotechnology. For the first time, data on the population's food security, the marketability of peasant farms, and the role of individual crops (tobacco, flax, hemp, sugar beets, and potatoes) in the structure of the regional economy have been systematically summarized. Conclusions. The study establishes that during 1867–1914 crop production in Eastern Galicia demonstrated noticeable, yet contradictory, progress driven by imperial political and economic reforms. Sown areas under main grain crops and potatoes increased, areas under industrial crops expanded somewhat, and average yields rose owing to the spread of iron agricultural implements, the dissemination of agronomic knowledge through agricultural societies, and growing literacy among the population. At the same time, the region retained a predominantly agrarian-raw-material economic structure: only a small proportion of peasant farms produced grain for market sale, while the majority were forced to purchase food, causing chronic food vulnerability and high mortality. The authors demonstrate that the development of crop production in Galicia during this period illustrates the model of "peripheral modernization"—a combination of quantitative progress with deep structural contradictions that yielded limited profits mainly for wealthier farmers and landowners, ultimately serving as a major source of social tension on the eve of the First World War.