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Alatifundium (Latin:latus, "spacious", andfundus, "farm", "estate")[1] was originally the term used byancient Romans for greatlanded estates specialising in agriculture destined for sale: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic ofMagna Graecia andSicily,Egypt,Northwest Africa andHispania Baetica. Thelatifundia were the closest approximation to industrialised agriculture in antiquity, and their economics depended uponslavery.
In themodern colonial period, the word was borrowed in Portugueselatifúndios and Spanishlatifundios or simplyfundos for similar extensive land grants, known asfazendas (inPortuguese) orhaciendas (inSpanish), in their empires.
The basis of thelatifundia notably inMagna Graecia (the south of Italy includingSicilia) andHispania, was theager publicus (state-owned land) that was confiscated from conquered people beginning in the 3rd century BC.[2][3] As much as a third of the arable land of a new province was taken foragri publici and then divided up with at least the fiction of a competitive auction for leased estates rather than outright ownership.[citation needed]
Later, the practice of establishing agriculturalcoloniae, especially from the early 1st century BC, as a way to reward Roman army veterans created smaller landholdings, which would then be acquired by large landowners in times of economic distress. Such consolidation into fewer hands, mainlyRoman patricians, was not universally approved of, but efforts to reverse the trend byagrarian laws were generally unsuccessful.
Later in theRoman Empire, as leases were inherited, ownership of the former common lands became established by tradition, and the leases became taxable. Ownership of land, organised in thelatifundia, defined theRoman Senatorial class as it was their only socially acceptable source of wealth (as a result of the farmer-soldier tradition ofCinncinatus).[3][4]
Latifundia included avilla rustica, including an often luxurious owner's residence, and the operation of the farm relied on a large number ofRoman slaves,[5] sometimes kept in anergastulum. They produced agricultural products for sale and profit such aslivestock (sheep andcattle) or olive oil, grain,garum and wine. Nevertheless, Rome had to import grain (in the Republican period, from Sicily and North Africa; in the Imperial era, from Egypt).[6]
Thelatifundia quickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greatereconomies of scale and productivity, and senator owners did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor ofagribusiness.[7]
Latifundia also expanded to the Roman provinces ofMauretania (modernMaghreb) and inHispania Baetica (modernAndalusia) with conquest of those areas.[citation needed]
Thelatifundia distressedPliny the Elder (died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army.[8][9] His writings can be seen as a part of the conservative reaction to the profit-oriented new attitudes of the upper classes of the Early Empire. He argued that thelatifundia had ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point, just six owners possessed half of theprovince of Africa,[10] which may be a piece of rhetorical exaggeration as the North African cities were filled with flourishing landowners who filled the town councils.
As small farms were bought up by the wealthy with their vast supply of slaves, the newly landless peasantry moved to the city of Rome, where they became dependent on state subsidies. Free peasants did not completely disappear. Many became tenants on estates that were worked in two ways: partly directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves, and partly leased to tenants.
The production system of thelatifundia went into crisis between the 1st and 2nd century as the supply of slaves dwindled due to lack of new conquests.[11]
In the 6th century,Cassiodorus was able to apply his ownlatifundia to support his short-livedVivarium in the heel of Italy.
InSicily,latifundia dominated the island from medieval times. They were only abolished by sweeping land reform mandating smaller farms in 1950–1962, funded from theCassa per il Mezzogiorno, the Italian government's development fund for southern Italy (1950–1984).[12]
In theIberian Peninsula, theReconquista' of Muslim territories of Spain, theAl-Andalus, by theKingdom of Castile provided the Christian kingdom with sudden extensions of land, which the kings gave as a reward to nobility, mercenaries andmilitary orders to exploit aslatifundia, which had been first established as the commercial olive oil and grainlatifundia of RomanHispania Baetica. The gifts finished the traditional small private ownership of land, eliminating a social class that had also been typical of theal-Andalus period.[citation needed]
In the Iberian peninsula, the possessions of the Church did not pass to private ownership until theecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal (Spanish:desamortización), the secularization of church-ownedlatifundia, which proceeded in pulses through the 19th century.[citation needed]
Big areas ofAndalusia are still populated by an underclass ofjornaleros, landless peasants who are hired by the latifundists as "day workers" for specific seasonal campaigns. Thejornalero class has been fertile ground forsocialism andanarchism. Still today, among the main Andalusian trade unions is the Rural Workers Union (Sindicato Obrero del Campo), a far-left group famous for theirsquatting campaigns in the town ofMarinaleda,Province of Seville.[citation needed]
