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Spain Agricultural Development
Farming was only marginally affected by the Civil War,
yet
agricultural output during the 1940s remained below the
1933
level. This low agricultural productivity led to food
rationing,
substantially contributing to the great hardships endured
by
people residing in the cities. One of the main reasons for
this
dilemma was the government preoccupation with industrial
selfsufficiency , which resulted in neglect for the
modernization of
agriculture. The government did encourage grain
cultivation with
the aim of achieving agricultural self-sufficiency, but
heavyhanded efforts to control food prices led to the massive
channeling of agricultural products into the black market.
The traditional shortcomings of Spanish agriculture--
excessive land fragmentation (minifundismo) and
extremely
large land tracts in the hands of a few
(latifundismo)--
were, for all practical purposes, ignored. As in the past,
latifundio areas with low yields and little irrigation
were
primarily devoted to the production of such traditional
commodities as olive oil, grains, and wine. They were,
moreover,
the areas where casual rural laborers (braceros) were
concentrated, where wage levels were lowest, and where
illiteracy
rates were highest.
A gradual change in Spanish agriculture began in the
1950s,
when prices rapidly increased, and the surplus labor pool
began
to shrink, as a half million rural field hands migrated to
the
cities or went abroad in search of a better life
(see Migration
, ch. 2). Nonetheless, more substantial changes did not take
place
prior to the 1960s. The Stabilization Plan of 1959
encouraged
emigration from rural areas, and the economic boom in both
Spain
and Western Europe provided increased opportunities for
employment. The subsequent loss of rural manpower had a
farreaching effect on both agricultural prices and wage
levels and,
as a consequence, on the composition of Spanish
agriculture.
Spain's economic transformation in the 1960s and in the
first
half of the 1970s caused tremendous outmigration from
rural
areas. Between 1960 and 1973, 1.8 million people migrated
to
urban areas. Even later, between 1976 and 1985, when the
economy
was experiencing serious difficulties, the fall in farm
employment averaged 4 percent per annum. The results of
these
migrations were reflected in the changing percentage of
the
population involved in farming. In 1960, 42 percent of the
population was engaged in agricultural work; by 1986 only
about
15 percent was so employed--a marked reduction, though
still
twice as high as the EC average. As Spain became more
industrialized, the declining share of agriculture in the
economy
was evidenced by its declining share of the GDP.
Agriculture
accounted for 23 percent of GDP in 1960; for 15 percent,
in 1970;
and for 5 percent, by 1986
(see
fig. 10). In addition, the
character of Spanish agriculture in the 1980s had changed.
It had
become less a way of life and more a way of making a
living. Even
subsistence agriculture, already in steady decline, had
become
increasingly market oriented.
The magnitude of the rural exodus permitted the
government to
undertake a program of parcel consolidation, that is, to
bring
together into single plots many tiny, scattered pieces of
land
that characterized the minifundio sector. The
government
managed to surpass its goal of consolidating 1 million
hectares
of small land holdings between 1964 and 1967; by 1981 it
had
brought together a total of 5 million hectares.
The decreased size of the rural work force affected
Spanish
agriculture because its traditionally labor-intensive
practices
required a large pool of cheap labor. The workers who
remained in
the countryside saw their wages advanced by 83.8 percent
between
1960 and 1970--a rate that roughly followed the wage
increases in
industry. At the same time, however, increased
agricultural labor
costs led to the end of countless minifundios. The
1982
agrarian census recorded the disappearance of about
one-half
million small farms between 1962 and 1982. The resulting
lack of
a ready labor supply was an incentive, particularly for
large
landed estates, to mechanize. The number of farm tractors
expanded more than tenfold between 1960 and 1983, from
52,000 to
593,000. The number of combine harvester-threshers
increased
almost tenfold over the same period, from 4,600 to 44,000.
The
process of mechanization caused agricultural productivity
to grow
by 3.5 percent per year between 1960 and 1978, and the
productivity of farm workers grew even faster.
Nonetheless,
Spain's output per agricultural worker remained low. It
was about
half the EC average in 1985, and it surpassed only those
of
Greece and Portugal.
During the mid-1980s, Spanish agriculture was roughly
selfsufficient in years when there were good harvests, and in
nearly
every year there were sizable surpluses of olive oil,
citrus
fruits, and wine that could be exported in quantities
large
enough to make it the EC's third-largest food supplier. In
years
of poor or average harvests, the country was obliged to
import
grains for use as animal fodder, but on the whole Spain
was a net
exporter of foodstuffs.
Spanish agriculture varied considerably with regard to
regional differences in output. Some regions were
distinguished
by a highly inefficient variety of farming. Specialists
estimated
that areas dominated by minifundios would have to
lose an
estimated three-fourths of their farming population if
they were
to compete effectively with foreign producers. The variety
of
agriculture practiced along the Mediterranean coast or in
the Rio
Ebro Valley was, however, highly efficient and capable of
keeping
up with foreign competition.
Opinion was not united as to what EC membership would
eventually mean for Spanish farmers. The EC's Common
Agricultural
Policy (CAP), which aimed at supporting most of each
member
state's farming sector, was expensive, and by the 1980s it
was
consuming well over half of the organization's revenues.
If the
CAP were continued, it would not be likely to have a
considerable
effect on Spanish agriculture, for a system of domestic
price
supports had long protected the weaker parts of the
nation's farm
sector. A change of EC policy that encouraged a single
communitywide agricultural system might allow those parts of the
Spanish
agricultural sector that outperformed their rivals in the
EC to
prosper, while backward branches would probably disappear.
Data as of December 1988
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