Agricultural Terms: Latifundio, Fishing, and More
Agricultural Terms Explained
Latifundio
A latifundio is a large land ownership, traditionally characterized by absentee ownership, extensive cultivation, low yields, and a large number of laborers facing severe seasonal unemployment and illiteracy.
Smallholder
Smallholder refers to small properties or farms. This can prevent competitive agriculture and tends to disappear or be mitigated through land consolidation policies.
Deep Sea Fishing
Deep sea fishing takes place in waters with fishing boats and gear appropriate for navigation at sea.
Inshore Fishing
Inshore fishing is done by small boats near the coast.
Seasonal Migration
Seasonal migration refers to the seasonal movement of livestock, particularly sheep, to find grass.
Dryland Agriculture
Dryland agriculture receives water only from rain and irrigation.
Irrigated Agriculture
Irrigated agriculture is the agricultural practice of providing water to crops in addition to rainfall, from surface water or groundwater.
Intensive Agriculture
Intensive agriculture is a cropping system based on high inputs of labor and investment, and often involves high-tech methods such as the application of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation. The expected result is high yields per unit area, so production is usually concentrated in smaller plots.
Extensive Agriculture
Extensive agriculture is a cropping system characterized by a small input of work and is usually associated with large tracts of land.
Lease
A lease is a type of land tenure or business arrangement that includes the rental of plots/land for a sum of money.
Dispersed Rural Settlement
A dispersed rural settlement is one in which houses are separated from each other and surrounded by tenements, made up of fields, meadows, or forests.
Clustered Rural Settlement
A clustered rural settlement is one in which houses are grouped, forming a rural village, regardless of the location of the tenements.
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation involves dividing a farm and changing the crops annually in each section. This allows the soil to rest and recover its fertility.
Fallow
Fallow is a traditional agricultural practice in dry lands, where land is left to rest to better collect rainwater and destroy weeds, which in turn serve as fertilizer to the soil.
CAP (Common Agricultural Policy)
CAP stands for Common Agricultural Policy, created in 1961 (Spain joined in 1986) to ensure the living standards of farmers, stabilize markets, and ensure supplies to consumers.
Land Consolidation
Land consolidation aims to reduce the dispersion of smallholdings and parcels, giving each owner a single parcel or a few equivalent in kind of land and crop types to which they had before, and provide access to parcels to the roads.
Livestock Farming
Cattle that live on farms, feeding on fodder and feed, usually have a high density of animals and highly selective breeds.
Industrial Crops
Industrial crops are intended for industrial processing, such as sunflower or cotton.
Dehesa
Dehesa is a type of operation that combines agriculture, livestock, and sometimes forestry. Typically, it is used for farming for some years, then letting the land rest, then used for extensive farming.
Rural Exodus
Rural exodus refers to emigration, usually of young people, from the countryside to the city. This process is very old and was accelerated with the Industrial Revolution. It not only changed their place of residence but also their profession, given the large geographical differences that exist between the opportunities, the number, and characteristics of different types of jobs that exist in the field, in relation to the city.
Plot
A plot is the portion of cultivated land that is bounded by a common edge.
Operation
An operation is a group of plots worked by an agricultural producer itself, regardless of whether they are separated or not, and whether they are owned or not.