European and Spanish Agriculture: Landscapes and Policies

Posted on Mar 2, 2025 in Geography

Item 5: Characteristics of Agricultural Activities (Europe)

  • The population employed in them is limited.
  • The production techniques are modern in Western Europe. However, some countries from Eastern and Southern Europe maintain traditional techniques and low production.
  • The herd size varies.
  • The production is abundant.

Agricultural Landscapes

  • The oceanic agricultural landscape of Western Europe is specialized in pasture, forage crops, and cereals for livestock feeding in intensive dairy or meat production.
  • The Mediterranean agricultural landscape is varied. Drylands feature the Mediterranean trilogy: fallow rotation with cereals or legumes, vines, and olive trees. Irrigated areas practice intensive agriculture.
  • The continental agricultural landscape in Central and Eastern Europe:
    • In the colder northern area, logging of coniferous forests occurs in the north, and extensive beef breeding in the south.
    • The central area features meat livestock and the cultivation of cereals like wheat and corn, sugar beet and sunflower, and forage.
    • Steppe areas have rainfed cereal monoculture and industrial crops in irrigated areas.

Factors of Agricultural Landscapes (Spain)

The physical factors are generally unfavorable for farming in Spain. The average altitude presents a high relief and steep slopes. The climate is characterized in much of the territory by low and erratic rainfall and extreme temperatures, freezing or heat waves, and the soils are of poor quality.

Human factors: the labor force, agricultural technology, the size of land ownership, and agricultural production.

Problems of Agricultural Activities

Major problems encountered by Spanish and European farming:

  • The depopulation of rural areas.
  • The intensification of production generates surpluses.
  • The environment is deteriorating due to the use of chemicals and the production of livestock waste.
  • There are unsustainable agricultural practices.

Agricultural Policy of the European Union: CAP

Spain, as a member of the European Union, adopted a common agricultural policy (CAP), which proposes the following objectives:

  • Establish a fair price for farmers and consumers by setting maximum and minimum prices for each product.
  • Achieve a competitive agriculture, reducing the surplus. The measures to achieve this were early retirements, production ceilings for surplus products, and the extensification of production, increasing areas of fallow and forest.
  • Achieve a sustainable agriculture capable of keeping the population in rural areas and preserving the environment:
    • Increased funding for rural development in the most deprived areas.
    • The promotion of organic farming.
    • The conditioning of financial aid for farmers to comply with environmental standards.

Sea Fishing in Spain

Problem: Excessive fleet capacity in relation to fishing opportunities, scarce resources of national fishing grounds, and difficulties of access to international fishing grounds, over-exploitation, and pollution.

CFP (Common Fisheries Policy): Scrapping, early retirement, fishing quotas, and national fish stocks are being managed, pollution is being controlled, and aquaculture is being promoted.

Agriculture and Livestock

  • The mountains
  • The countryside
  • The southwest area
  • The plains of the southeast