Objective:

To study the link between the climatic variability that characterized the Little Ice Age and the grain supply policies of the cities of the Hispanic Monarchy.

Methodology:

After an exhaustive analysis of the minutes of the city council of Mexico from 1524-1630 the patterns of behavior during grain shortages due to meteorological setbacks are presented and compared with other documents and city council minutes from 1505 to 1759, belonging to the kingdoms of Castile and the Indies.

Originality:

Grain policies are usually analyzed under a short-term time frame, as for example during a bread riot. They also focus on a city or a region of the Hispanic Monarchy's possessions. This paper analyzes these policies with a long-term temporal perspective and covering as much of these territories as possible.

Conclusions:

All city councils had the same policies to implement when there was a lack of grain due to climatological problems. These policies sought to avoid riots by supplying grain, wheat and corn at cheap prices. There were no substantial differences between cities unless they were imposed by the orography and climatology. These were not modified from 1505 to 1759. How these policies were applied depended on multiple factors (persistence of the climatic problem, grain prices, reserves in the city, etc.) that made it so that they were not implemented as a recipe.