La formación del monocultivo olivarero en la comarca Campiña de Jaén

Just like in so many other inland areas of Andalusia, the olive groves are the main crop cultivated in the region of Campina de Jaen. Although it might seem that it has existed for centuries, the formation of this monoculture is quite recent. Using the cartography that is available, this process can be rebuilt and, simultaneously, the key factors behind its progress can be determined, which have changed over time. Given the diversity of the selected area under analysis, the space and time patterns detected can be used as a model to understand what has happened on other scales, such as on provincial or regional scales. By analyzing ortophotographs and maps -that enable us to go back to the end of 19th century- and the written documentation, during this study different periods or processes of change that the cultivation has gone through have been identified. The study starts off with the typical contexts of subsistence and the dominance of multifunctional fields, where olive trees were mixed in with cereals or fruit trees; to make productivism more intense (typical in last decades of the 20th century) and then it goes on to the appearance of the first signs of new processes like post- productivism or neo-productivism that followed.