Rural Spaces in Spain: Physical and Human Factors
The Spaces of the Primary Sector
The rural area is the undeveloped area of a surface. It has traditionally been a developed agricultural area where farming, ranching, and forestry occur. However, since the 1970s, there have been other activities, such as residential, industrial, and service. As a result, the rural space has become more heterogeneous and complex.
Physical and Human Elements
In Spain, there are a variety of rural areas as a result of the influence of various physical and human factors.
The Environment
Physical factors have lost the importance they had in the past due to technical advances. However, physical factors continue to exert their influence, and in the case of Spain, it is not favorable.
The relief depicts a high altitude and abundant slopes, which facilitate erosion and impede machining. The climate is characterized in much of the land by low and erratic rainfall, with a relative frequency of storms and hail. The soil is of poor quality, and in many areas, it suffers from erosion problems that reduce its fertility.
The Agricultural Structure
The traditional agrarian structure was characterized by employing a large workforce. The current agrarian structure is characterized by the use of a sparse, aged population.
The Rural Population and Recent Changes
a) The population employed in agricultural activities is weak and aged. The main cause of this has been the rural exodus that occurred between 1960 and 1975.
b) Demographic trends indicate that since the early 1990s: population decline and aging have affected the most disadvantaged rural areas. Some help rejuvenate the most dynamic rural areas.
Farms and Their Recent Transformations
a) The agricultural area is divided into plots and farms. The land plots are the precise limits belonging to an owner. The farms are all the plots worked by a single agricultural producer.
b) The recent transformation of the farm affects their physical size and the system of tenure. The physical size of farms has traditionally been characterized by the dominance of the extreme values and the scarcity of medium size. The small farm (less than 10 ha) represents 67.8% of the total and meets only 10.4% of the utilized agricultural area. It predominates in the north of the peninsula and in the community of Valencia. Large farms (over 100 ha), representing 4.6% of the total, account for 56.8% of agricultural land use.
Techniques and Agricultural Systems and Their Transformations
The technical changes have included the incorporation of advances in the mechanization of tasks, the genetic selection of seeds, and livestock breeds. The changes in agricultural systems have resulted in a growing intensification of production and a parallel increase in yields.
The Settlement and the Rural Habitat
The settlement and habitat are two elements of rural areas that have also undergone significant changes.
The Rural Settlement and Its Recent Changes
a) The rural settlement is the set of existing human settlements in rural areas. In Spain, municipalities under 10,000 are considered rural. The origins of rural settlement are related to physical factors, especially the relief and the presence of water.
The topology of the rural settlement addresses two models, dispersed and concentrated, with a variety of intermediate situations. In the dispersed rural settlement, the house is separate from the other houses and is surrounded by fields, meadows, and forests. It predominates in the periphery of the Peninsula, the Balearic and Canary Islands, and has several forms:
- Scattered: all houses are isolated from each other.
- Sparse interlayer: it is formed by houses scattered from the nuclei concentrated primitive.
- Scattered loose: it is small clusters of houses or villages.
The concentrated settlement houses are grouped, forming a rural village. This mode extends throughout the Spanish territory but predominantly in the peninsular. It presents two basic types:
- Linear, with houses arranged along a street or road.
- Crowded, with houses grouped around a core, irregular or more or less regular.
b) The changes experienced by the rural settlement are numerous: The interior has reduced the size of settlements due to the rural exodus. On the coast, tourism has crowded housing estates, hotels, and facilities for rural areas. In peri-urban areas, the population and economic growth of the city incorporate rural communities close to the urban continuum.
The Countryside and Its Recent Transformations
a) The rural habitat is composed of cells of the rural settlements, dwellings, and other buildings. Traditional materials of the house are typical of the area and led to several housing models: The stone house dominates the peninsular periphery in Extremadura and the Balearic and Canary Islands. The wooden house consists of a latticed wood structure visible inside. The mud house is characteristic of both plateaus, the middle Ebro valley, the orchards of Valencia and Murcia, and the plain of the Guadalquivir.
The floor plan is related to farming. It responds to several models:
- The house block contains all the units under the same roof; the house at ground level has a single floor. Dependency can be single or have a separate unit for housing and agricultural uses.
- The house is divided into plant height. In the typically low agricultural units and the upper housing.
- The house consists of buildings made for each function arranged around a courtyard, open or closed. Exemplified by the Andalusian farmhouse.
b) The recent changes in the rural habitat are due to the disappearance of traditional lifestyles that led to the houses.
Agricultural Policy
Policy actions also affect rural areas. In Spain, agricultural policy underwent a major transformation following the entry of the European Community (1989) and the consistent adoption of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Agricultural Policy Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Agricultural policy focused on the system of land ownership, the inadequate size of landholdings, trade protectionism, and increasing yields.
a) The system of land ownership on several occasions tried to modify. b) The inadequate size of land ownership was made through land consolidation policy and legislation on large farms. c) The established trade protectionism tariffs on agricultural products from abroad to avoid competition with national products. d) The increase in yields was addressed by the introduction of technical improvements and the extension of irrigation.
The EU’s Agricultural Policy and Its Impact
From the Spanish entry in the EU, agricultural policy has been marked by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Its consequences have been varied:
a) Spain joined the European common market by participating in internal and external organization and free trade among its members.
- In the market, there are Common Market Organizations (CMO) for the most representative products.
- In the foreign market, products imported from third countries pay a common tariff in order to give preference to the community.
- Free trade has allowed European Spanish products to enter a market of millions of consumers with high purchasing power.
Agricultural Uses of Rural Areas
The uses of rural areas are still mainly agricultural, agriculture, livestock, and forestry. The area occupied by these uses in Spain is divided into arable land, which tends to decrease, natural meadows and pastures, which are stable, and forest land, which has increased. The contribution of each use of the final agricultural production has evolved from a predominance of crop production to animal production.