Agricultural and Economic Terms: A Concise Lexicon
Agricultural and Economic Terms
Aquaculture
The farming technique of aquatic plants and animals. Includes freshwater aquaculture (raising fish in fish farms) and marine aquaculture (shellfish, mussels, sea bass, etc.).
Part-Time Farming
Small holding, highly productive, generating additional income to people whose main activity lies outside this sector.
Extensive Agriculture
Agriculture practiced in large areas.
Intensive Agriculture
Aims to extract as much product as possible per unit area, often involving different crops on each farm.
Fallows
Arable land not sown for one or more years.
Fishery
A site where nets are made for fishing.
Reparcelling
The process of merging farms (not property), initiated by the government. It is a reform that changes the size of owned land, aiming to decrease small farms.
Extensive Cattle Farming
Raising, feeding, and caring for animals for human use on large farms with low-input additions.
Intensive Breeding
Breeding, feeding, and caring for animals for human use in small-sized operations with many inputs added.
Habitat
Composed of cells of rural settlements: the houses and other units.
Concentrated Habitat
A landscape associated with open fields. People concentrate all buildings, often with the core located in the center of the exploited space, facilitating communications. Clustered housing allows maximum use of cultivable space and appears in castle areas.
Scattered Habitat
Associated with closed fields, where each plot has its construction, and the peasant lives in isolation, without forming communities. Common in oceanic climate regions, such as northern Spain (Galicia, Asturias).
Latifundio
Large agricultural holding.
Minifundio
Small-scale agricultural holding.
Monoculture
Single or predominant culture of a plant species in a given region.
Fishing
Can be performed at sea, anywhere in the ocean.
Inshore Fishing
Carried out by small boats in coastal proximities.
Common Agricultural Policy
A set of policy decisions affecting the agricultural sector of all countries in the European Union.
Afforestation
The action of planting new forest species. Forest policy aims at the protection of the forest and its extension through reforestation.
Tariff
Official rate that determines the rights to be paid in certain economic activities such as trade and customs.
Balance of Trade
The difference between what is earned from exports and what is spent on imports.
Economy
Economic activities, businesses, labor, or other employment that are not registered and therefore are not taxed and are beyond the control of institutions.
Renewable Energy Sources
Sources of energy that are returned to nature with little modification and can be used again.
Export
Sell items to another country.
Import
Buy foreign-made items into a country.
GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
The total value of production of goods and services in a country in a given period. Includes private consumption, plus investment, public expenditure, the variation in inventories, and net exports.
GNP (Gross National Product)
Reflects the monetary value of the annual flow of goods and services. Usually measured by adding the entire cost of each inhabitant, public expenditure, and any investment made by the industry of a country, both in and out of this.
Industrial Conversion
In Spain, a process initiated in 1984 that aims to modernize the oldest factories by adopting new technologies and making them more productive.