Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO)

The Agroecosystems History Laboratory (AHL) is a research group belonging to the Pablo de Olavide University (www.upo.es). It specialises in a new research field at the interface of environmental sciences and agricultural and socio-economic history, where historians, agronomists, ecologists and economists work together (http://www.lha.es/). The AHL has tried to create a new approach to the study of agrarian systems from the historical perspective combining agroecology with social metabolism framework. The originality of this approach lies in the integration of biophysical analysis with economic and social analyses, but also in the development of new methodological tools for designing sustainable food systems.

Given the double purpose of these methodologies, for the study of agriculture both in the past and in the present, the AHL has developed a completely original line of research and action which aims to contribute with historical knowledge to the development of organic agriculture. Thus, the AHL has performed works which have helped it to design more sustainable cropping systems, and to assess the energetic cost of the agri-food system with metabolic methodologies in order to make it more sustainable; or to contribute to the design of public policies for the promotion of organic farming and Agroecology.