Administración consultiva agraria y organización propietaria. El otro proceso de imbricación en el Estado de los hacendados aragoneses. 1900-1930

Abstract

The article addresses the making of an agricultural consultative administration in the region of Aragón at the beginning of the twentieth century. Organisations like the Asociación de Labradores de Zaragoza (A.L.Z) and the Sindicato Central de Aragón (S.C.A) developed a model of association, a commercial system (mainly in fertilisers and credit), and a leadership system. The origin of these rural organisations was closely connected with the economic crisis in the countryside in the late nineteenth century and with the search for a solution to this crisis. Around these organisations a power structure began to emerge. The state saw the organizations as representing the peasants, but they were run exclusively by landowners, for whom this was a means of fostering their hegemony in rural areas. They targeted institutions like the Junta de Aranceles y Valoraciones or the Consejo Superior de Fomento. In this respect, the Consejo Provincial de Fomento as a local consultative institution was a centre of relations between rural leadership, local government agronomists, and politicians.