Agriculture in Spain

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (June 2016) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (November 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Agriculture in Spain is important to the national economy. The primary sector activities accounting for agriculture, husbandry, fishing and silviculture represented a 2.7% of the Spanish GDP in 2017, with an additional 2.5% represented by the agrofood industry.^[1]

Geography and climate of Spain

Viewed in terms of land mass, Spain is one of the largest countries in

20.6 million of Spain's 50.5 million hectares of land, or about 40 percent, is suitable for cultivation.

Just under 25 percent of all farms consisted of less than 1 hectare of land, and they accounted for 0.5 percent of all farmland.[2] Minifundios were particularly numerous in the north and the northwest.^[2] Latifundios were mainly concentrated in the south, in Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Valencia, and Andalusia.^[2]

Crop areas were farmed in two main manners.

Because the interior of Spain is dominated by

Galicia, which consists of Spain's four westernmost provinces directly north of Portugal, had a concentrated farm population living on intensely fragmented plots.^[2] Accordingly, per capita farm income was low, compared with that of the northern provinces lying to the east, where there were fewer people and higher per capita income levels because of a more diversified economy that included industry, mining, and tourism.^[2]

The vast dry plateau region of central Spain contrasted sharply with the country's relatively productive areas.^[2] The production of agricultural commodities was particularly difficult in central Spain because of a lack of rainfall, a scarcity of trees and other vegetation, extremes of temperature, and harsh, rocky soil.^[2] Nevertheless, the farmers of the region grew wheat and other grains, raised sheep and goats, maintained vineyards, and carried on other agricultural activities.^[2]

An important irrigation system lies just northwest of the northern Meseta and south of the

Agriculture in the Canary Islands (Spanish: Islas Canarias) was limited by water shortages and mountainous terrain. Nevertheless, a variety of vegetable and fruit crops were produced for local consumption, and there was a significant and exportable surplus of tomatoes and bananas.^[2]

Climate change

History of agricultural development

Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Spain's agricultural output was among the lowest in Europe.^[11] These poor results were only marginally affected by the war, yet agricultural output during the 1940s remained below the 1933 level.^[2] This low agricultural productivity led to food rationing, substantially contributing to the great hardships endured by people living in the cities.^[2] One of the main reasons for this dilemma was the government preoccupation with industrial self-sufficiency, which resulted in neglect for the modernization of agriculture.^[2] The government did encourage grain cultivation with the aim of achieving agricultural self-sufficiency, but heavy-handed efforts to control food prices led to the massive channeling of agricultural products into the black market.^[2]

The traditional shortcomings of Spanish agriculture — excessive land fragmentation (minifundismo) and extremely large land tracts in the hands of a few (latifundismo) — were, for all practical purposes, ignored.

A gradual change in Spanish agriculture began in the 1950s, when prices rapidly increased, and the surplus labor pool began to shrink, as a half million rural field hands migrated to the cities or went abroad in search of a better life.[2] Nonetheless, more substantial changes did not take place prior to the 1960s.^[2] The Stabilization Plan of 1959 encouraged emigration from rural areas, and the economic boom in both Spain and Western Europe provided increased opportunities for employment.^[2] The subsequent loss of rural manpower had a far-reaching effect on both agricultural prices and wage levels and, as a consequence, on the composition of Spanish agriculture.^[2]

Spain's economic transformation in the 1960s and in the first half of the 1970s caused tremendous outmigration from rural areas.

The magnitude of the rural exodus permitted the government to undertake a program of parcel consolidation, that is, to bring together into single plots many tiny, scattered pieces of land that characterized the minifundio sector.[2] The government managed to surpass its goal of consolidating 1 million hectares of small land holdings between 1964 and 1967; by 1981 it had brought together a total of 5 million hectares.^[2]

The decreased size of the rural work force affected Spanish agriculture because its traditionally labor-intensive practices required a large pool of

The resulting lack of a ready labor supply was an incentive to mechanise, particularly for large landed estates.[2] The number of farm tractors expanded more than tenfold between 1960 and 1983, from 52,000 to 593,000.^[2] The number of combine harvester-threshers increased almost tenfold over the same period, from 4,600 to 44,000.^[2] The process of mechanization caused agricultural productivity to grow by 3.5 percent per year between 1960 and 1978, and the productivity of farm workers grew even faster.^[2] Nonetheless, Spain's output per agricultural worker remained low.^[2] It was about half the EC average in 1985, and it surpassed only those of Greece and Portugal.^[2]

During the mid-1980s, Spanish agriculture was roughly self-sufficient in years when there were good harvests, and in nearly every year there were sizable surpluses of olive oil, citrus fruits, and wine that could be exported in quantities large enough to make it the EC's third-largest food supplier.^[2] In years of poor or average harvests, the country was obliged to import grains for use as animal fodder, but on the whole Spain was a net exporter of foodstuffs.^[2]

Spanish agriculture varied considerably with regard to regional differences in output.

Opinion was not united as to what EC membership would eventually mean for Spanish farmers.[2] The EC's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which aimed at supporting most of each member state's farming sector, was expensive, and by the 1980s it was consuming well over half of the organization's revenues.^[2] If the CAP were continued, it would not be likely to have a considerable effect on Spanish agriculture, for a system of domestic price supports had long protected the weaker parts of the nation's farm sector.^[2] A change of EC policy that encouraged a single community-wide agricultural system might allow those parts of the Spanish agricultural sector that outperformed their rivals in the EC to prosper, while backward branches would probably disappear.^[2]

Production

Spain produced, in 2018:

• 9.8 million tons of
  olives
  (largest producer in the world);
• 9.1 million tons of barley (5th largest producer in the world);
• 7.9 million tons of wheat (19th largest producer in the world);
• 6.6 million tons of grape (4th largest producer in the world, behind China, Italy and USA);
• 4.7 million tons of tomato (8th largest producer in the world);
• 3.8 million tons of maize;
• 3.6 million tons of orange (6th largest producer in the world);
• 2.8 million tons of sugar beet, which is used to produce sugar and ethanol;
• 2 million tonnes of potato;
• 1.9 million tonnes of tangerine (2nd largest producer in the world, only behind China);
• 1.4 million tons of
  oats
  (3rd largest producer in the world, only behind Russia and Canada);
• 1.2 million tons of onion (17th largest producer in the world);
• 1.2 million tons of chili pepper (5th largest producer in the world);
• 1.1 million tons of watermelon (14th largest producer in the world);
• 1 million tons of lemon (7th largest producer in the world);
• 950 thousand tons of sunflower seed (11th largest producer in the world);
• 934 thousand tons of lettuce and chicory;
• 903 thousand tons of peach (4th largest producer in the world, only behind China, Italy and Greece);
• 818 thousand tons of rice;
• 725 thousand tons of cauliflower and broccoli;
• 717 thousand tons of pumpkin;
• 664 thousand tons of melon;
• 649 thousand tons of triticale;
• 562 thousand tons of apple;
• 492 thousand tons of persimmon (2nd largest producer in the world, only behind China);
• 388 thousand tons of rye (8th largest producer in the world);
• 386 thousand tons of banana;
• 382 thousand tons of
  carrots
  ;
• 344 thousand tons of strawberry (6th largest producer in the world);
• 339 thousand tons of almond (2nd largest producer in the world, only behind the USA);
• 332 thousand tons of pear;
• 273 thousand tons of garlic;
• 262 thousand tons of dry pea;
• 238 thousand tons of eggplant;
• 213 thousand tons of cabbage;
• 208 thousand tons of artichoke (3rd largest producer in the world, behind Italy and Egypt);
• 176 thousand tons of apricot (6th largest producer in the world);

In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.^[12]

Crops

Spain has long been Western Europe's leading producer, and the world's foremost exporter, of oranges and

To make up for the shortage of domestic feed grains, Spain became one of the world's largest importers of soybeans, and it developed a modern oilseed-crushing industry of such high productivity that surplus soybean oil became one of Spain's most important agricultural export commodities.^[2] The government encouraged domestic production of soybeans to lessen the heavy dependence on soybean imports.^[2] To limit the impact of this production on the important, labor-intensive, olive oil industry, which provided work for many field hands in southern Spain, a domestic tax system was established that maintained a two-to-one olive oil-soybean oil price ratio.^[2] The revenues derived from this system subsidized large exports of surplus soybean oil.^[2] The United States, once the main source of soybean imports, lodged protests against this policy, both bilaterally and internationally, but with little effect as of 1988.^[2]

As a further step in reducing Spanish dependence on imported soybeans, the government encouraged

Spanish meat production in 1986 totalled 2,497,000 tons.

The EC states' generous subsidies and their experience in the use of expensive feed grains gave their livestock industries a decided competitive advantage.^[2] As the Spanish livestock sector was increasingly concentrated in northern Spain, where minifundio agriculture predominated, many Spanish cattleraising farms were too small fully to exploit the efficiencies of modern technology.^[2] Domestic meat production failed to meet demand, making Spain a net importer of farm animals and meat products.^[2]

Pork was Spain's most important meat product, and the number of pigs grew from 7.6 million in 1970 to 11.4 million in 1985.

The

Most of the natural forests of the

Lumber output was approximately 12.3 million cubic meters in 1986, compared with 11.8 million cubic meters in 1985.^[2] Output could conceivably triple if 5.8 million hectares of the best forestland, which accounted for 50 percent of the total woodlands area, were properly developed and managed.^[2] Existing forestation programs were inadequate, however.^[2] For example, in the 1975-84 period, the balance between reforestation and the loss of forestland as a result of fires favored the latter by about 148,000 hectares.^[2] A report issued by the Forest Progress Association reported that, by the year 2000, Spain's wood deficit could reach between 8.5 and 16.9 million cubic meters.^[2]

The value of Spain's forest products in 1985 was US$302 million.

Spain was Western Europe's leading fishing nation, and it had the world's fourth largest fishing fleet.^[2] Spaniards ate more fish per capita than any other European people, except the Scandinavians.^[2] In the mid-1980s, Spain's fishing catch averaged about 1.3 million tons a year, and the fishing industry accounted for about 1 percent of GDP.^[2] Sardines, mussels, cephalopods, cod, mackerel, and tuna, most of which came from the Atlantic Ocean, were the principal components of the catch.^[2]

Fishing was particularly important in the economic life of Galicia, the principal fishing ports of which were

In the mid-1980s, the fishing fleet numbered between 13,800 and 17,500 vessels, most of which were old and small.[2] Deep-sea vessels numbered about 2,000.^[2] Spain's 100,000 fishermen made up one-third of all European Community manpower in the fishing sector, and a further 700,000 Spanish jobs depended on fishing.^[2] Prior to its admission into the EC, the undisciplined behavior of Spanish fishermen was a constant problem for the government and for other European countries.^[2] Spanish vessels were frequently charged with fishing violations in the Atlantic and the North Sea. Entry into the EC brought access to most of its waters, but it also meant catches would be sharply restricted until 1995.^[2]

See also

• Spanish cuisine
• Economy of Spain
• Rights of migrant agricultural workers

References