Farming and Fishing in Spain: Key Concepts

Key Concepts of Agriculture in Spain

Extensive: A form of farming that requires large tracts of land and provides low yields due to low investment.

Intensive: A farming method located on a small area of land. It usually occurs in irrigated areas (wet meadows, greenhouses).

Performance Agriculture: Production per unit area.

Agricultural Production: Total tons of agricultural products produced or the total value of agricultural production. In this case, we speak of Total Agricultural Production in a country (PTA).

Utilized Agricultural Area (UAA): The area of arable land and pastures, excluding esparto, scrub, and woodland.

Land Tenure: The degree of dominion over the earth, total in the case of property, and limited in others. In direct holding, the farm owner and operator are the same person. In Spain, this is the dominant regime, close to 70%. In indirect holding, the landlord gives the exploitation of the land to another person (sharecropping, leasing).

Spread: All the buildings are isolated from each other. It is exceptional and limited to the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountains of Galicia.

Collate: Consists of buildings scattered around a village. It is common in the east and Murcia and somewhat less in the Canary Islands.

Confiscation: The process of expropriation, auction, and sale of immovable property of the Church in Spain carried out by the liberal governments of the nineteenth century. It extended until 1924.

Fallow: A traditional agricultural practice of letting the land rest for a variable time. It is still used in interior areas with cereal crops.

Irrigation and Key Economic Indicators

Irrigation: An agricultural practice that provides additional water to crops beyond rainfall. This is done using various systems such as gravity irrigation, sprinkler, or drip. Irrigation can be intensive or extensive.

GDP (Gross Domestic Product): The annual production value in U.S. dollars or Euros of all the public and private companies and professionals in a country minus the value of imports of goods and services. Located at 3%.

EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development): Used to fund sustainable projects in rural areas and the recovery of abandoned sites, and the establishment of cooperative farming. It is distinct from the EAGF (European Agricultural Guarantee Fund).

Fisheries in Spain

Fishing Area: An area where there is no fishing or a relative abundance of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. There are national and international fishing grounds offshore.

EEZ Fisheries (Exclusive Economic Zone): This space is also called territorial waters. It is organized into eight regions: Northwest, Cantabrian, North Winds, Levant, Southern Mediterranean, South Atlantic, Balearic, and Canary Islands.

EFF (European Fisheries Fund).

Common Fisheries Policy (CFP): Sets the price of goods and adopts Community guidelines on fisheries, including the very important contributions moratorium (temporary ban on catching certain threatened species).

Final Agricultural Production (PFA): The total value of agricultural output minus the elements used in the production process, e.g., seed or manure. The PFA measures the different crop and livestock production. So when we say that Spanish PFA is 65-35, we mean that 65% of the value belongs to agricultural production and 35% to livestock.