The intellectual scales of environment: Agricultural pests and public sphere in 19th century Portugal

Abstract

Studies and research on biological invasions have acquired increasing attention in environmental history. However, the acknowledgement of certain specific cultural markers –such as the press– has been hitherto limited in such works. In light of this, this paper seeks to evaluate the importance of regional Portuguese newspapers in studying plant pests and agricultural diseases through a substantial corpus of publications produced between the 1850s and 1910s. This article looks at three newspapers Jornal de Penafiel (1890-1914), the Damião de Goes (1886-1914) and the O Elvense (1880-1904) in order to establish the informative potential gleaned from these types of sources in different regions in the north, centre and south Portugal respectively.

The results highlight the importance of vine diseases (phylloxera, mildium, oidium) in the examined journalistic narratives. Nevertheless, other pests (potato blight, chestnut blight, brown rot) or bioinvaders (locust) were also important parts of these discourses. The results of this research reveals just how closely directed periodical press and diffusion of technical knowledge were in the strategies and attitudes against agricultural pests, showing that science was incorporated into the relationship between State and the rural communities.