An agro-town is an agglomeration in a rural environment with a population of several thousands but whose workforce's main occupation is agriculture. An agro-town also lacks the administrative, commercial and industrial functions that are usually common in the centers of such size. This type of agglomeration is particularly present around the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

, in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

, and in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

Structure

The population of agro-towns are commonly very poor; most workers do not own the land and are employed seasonally as wage labour. This also explains why these populations are often very fluctuant, with a large immigration during harvest and a significant emigration during the low season or in case of crises. The concentration of the land in the hands of a small elite of often absentee landlords commonly leads to tensions within the towns, leading in the 20th century to a prevalence of the communist vote in many agro-towns in Mediterranean Europe. Large landlords are typically absent and leave the management of their estates to agents who seldom lives in the town but rather in large and prosperous farmhouses in the countryside (known as

masia A masia in Catalan (or es, masía and an, pardina) is a type of rural construction common to the east of Spain: Catalonia, Valencian Community, Aragon, Languedoc and Provence (in the south of France). The estate in which the masia is located is ...

). On the other hand, landless wage labourers often travel large distances to reach the location of their employer. Despite the relative abundance of labour, the surrounding exploitations tend to concentrate in non-labour-intensive cultures due to the supervision issue that arises with large labour forces. Consequently

latifundia A ''latifundium'' (Latin: ''latus'', "spacious" and ''fundus'', "farm, estate") is a very extensive parcel of privately owned land. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, o ...

tend to specialize in capital-intensive cash crops, which often require the edification of large specialized buildings such as

windmills A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some par ...

or oil presses. Eboli centro storico

Environmental causes

Such a peculiar and somewhat counter-intuitive type of agglomeration has led to a lot of speculation regarding their origin. Among the main theories regarding their emergence, the most common are related to their environment. Agro-towns being prevalent in warm environments, it's been pointed out that they tended to emerge where water was rare and the population had to cluster around a well. Another factor that is commonly mentioned to explain the rise of agro-towns is the higher salubrity of the site of the agglomeration. The prevalence of

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

in wetlands implied that it was healthier to live in higher ground, which may have led to a concentration of the population on some hills. Incidentally, higher ground and concentrated habitat also provide good defensive positions, which may have played a role in regions where marauders and pirates were a threat to isolated farms.

Economic causes

In some regions agro-towns were close to broader habitats and that consequently environmental causes could not alone explain the emergence of agro-towns; instead there was a historical evolution which led to the concentration of the population into a few urban centers. In this view, small farmers were gradually driven off their land by larger landowners and had to seek refuge in towns, where they became wage labourers for those same large landowners. This process would explain why agro-towns are mostly in regions dominated by

and the high level of tension between the town residents and the landlords. As the most fertile lands are the most likely to attract large investors, agro-towns may be seen as a version of the

resource curse The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) having less economic growth, less democracy, or worse ...

, as more productive lands lead to a high level of misery among the population.

Examples of agro-towns

Italy

Eboli Eboli ( Ebolitano: ) is a town and ''comune'' of Campania, southern Italy, in the province of Salerno. An agricultural centre, Eboli is known mainly for olive oil and for its dairy products, among which the famous buffalo mozzarella from the ...

Trapani Trapani ( , ; scn, Tràpani ; lat, Drepanum; grc, Δρέπανον) is a city and municipality (''comune'') on the west coast of Sicily, in Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Trapani. Founded by Elymians, the city is still an imp ...

Pisticci Pisticci ( Metapontino: ; la, Pesticium) is a town comune in the province of Matera, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. Pisticci is the fourth most populous town in the region and the most populous in the province after Matera. It is k ...

Portugal

* Alvito

Spain

* Alcala

References

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