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Spain Crops
Spain has long been Western Europe's leading producer,
and
the world's foremost exporter, of oranges and mandarins.
In the
early 1960s, the production of these commodities averaged
1.8
million tons a year, and by the 1980s the annual yield
averaged
about 3 million tons (see
table 7, Appendix). Grapefruit,
lemons,
and limes were also grown in quantity, but Spain was
second to
Italy among West European producers of these fruits.
Spain's
citrus groves, all under irrigation, were concentrated in
Mediterranean coastal provinces, the Levante, primarily in
a
narrow coastal strip 500 kilometers in length extending
from the
province of Castellon to the province of Almeria. Some
citrus
fruit production also was found in Andalusia.
Spain's other significant orchard crops were apples,
bananas,
pears, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, figs, and nuts.
Except
for bananas, which were grown only in the Canary Islands,
and
figs, which were grown mostly in the Balearic Islands,
orchard
crops were produced primarily in the Levante and in
Catalonia.
The Catalan province of Lerida was the leading producer of
apples
and pears, and it ranked second to Murcia in the
production of
peaches. Almonds, grown along the southern and the eastern
coasts, emerged as another important Spanish cash crop.
Almost
half of the 1985 crop was exported, approximately 70 to 75
percent of it to EC countries.
The principal vegetable crops were potatoes, tomatoes,
onions, cabbages, peppers, and string beans. Spain was the
leading producer of onions in Western Europe, and it was
second
only to Italy in the production of tomatoes. These crops
were
concentrated in Andalusia and in the intensively
cultivated and
largely irrigated Mediterranean coastal areas, where small
garden
plots known as huertas were common. The Canary
Islands
also produced a significant proportion of Spain's
tomatoes.
Potatoes were a prominent garden crop in the northwest.
Spain was the world's leading producer and exporter of
olives
and olive oil, although in some years Italy showed higher
production levels because Spanish harvests were notably
vulnerable to insects, frost, and storm damage. Andalusia,
where
about one-half of the olive groves were found, is
generally free
of these hazards, but olives were grown in virtually every
province except the humid north and the northwest. In the
1980s,
olive production fluctuated wildly, ranging from 1.2
million to
3.3 million tons per year. Olive oil production was also
volatile. Spain's olive production is affected by EC
quotas, and
past efforts to control overproduction have included the
destruction of olive groves.
Though Spain boasted the world's largest area of land
devoted
to vineyards, much of the wine it produced was of mediocre
quality. Vineyards were usually located on poor land, and
good
wine-making technology was often lacking. In the past,
government-guaranteed prices for wine tended to encourage
quantity rather than quality and alcoholic content, but
programs
were instituted in the 1980s to upgrade production, and
surpluses
of poor quality white wine were more regularly distilled
into
industrial alcohol. Supported by the restructuring and
reconversion program initiated by the government in 1984
and by
an EC assistance program, Spain's vineyard acreage
continued to
decline, and it was expected to fall to 100,000 hectares
by 1990.
Spain's 1986 wine production was estimated at 36.7 million
hectoliters.
Grains covered about 10 percent of Spain's cultivated
lands,
and about 10 percent of that area was irrigated. Wheat and
barley
were generally grown in the dry areas because corn tends
to crowd
such crops out of areas with more abundant rainfall or
irrigation. Although most of the wheat was grown in dry
upland
areas, some of it also was grown on valuable irrigated
land. Rice
was dependent on plentiful water supplies and,
accordingly, was
produced in the irrigated areas of the Levante, in
Andalusia, and
at the mouth of the Rio Ebro. Spanish farmers also grew
rye,
oats, and sorghum.
During the mid-1980s, the grain crop usually hit record
highs
of about 20 million tons, compared to 13 million ton in
1983.
This meant that Spain, long a grain-importing nation, now
produced a surplus of cereals. Barley had come to account
for
about one-half of the grain harvest and corn for about
one-sixth
of it, as the government encouraged production of these
crops in
order to reduce imports of animal feed grains. Although
the wheat
crop was subject to wide fluctuations because of variable
weather
conditions, it generally provided about one-fourth of
Spain's
total grain production, which exceeded the country's
needs. Rice
and oats constituted the rest of the national total. Some
rice
and wheat were exported with the help of subsidies, and
analysts
expected the surplus of wheat and the deficit of corn to
continue
into the 1990s.
To make up for the shortage of domestic feed grains,
Spain
became one of the world's largest importers of soybeans,
and it
developed a modern oilseed-crushing industry of such high
productivity that surplus soybean oil became one of
Spain's most
important agricultural export commodities. The government
encouraged domestic production of soybeans to lessen the
heavy
dependence on soybean imports. To limit the impact of this
production on the important, labor-intensive, olive oil
industry,
which provided work for many field hands in southern
Spain, a
domestic tax system was established that maintained a
two-to-one
olive oil-soybean oil price ratio. The revenues derived
from this
system subsidized large exports of surplus soybean oil.
The
United States, once the main source of soybean imports,
lodged
protests against this policy, both bilaterally and
internationally, but with little effect as of 1988.
As a further step in reducing Spanish dependence on
imported
soybeans, the government encouraged sunflower production.
Especially favorable growing conditions, coupled with
generous
government support, caused sunflower seed output to expand
spectacularly, and the amount of land used for its
cultivation
went from virtually nothing in 1960 to approximately 1
million
hectares in the 1980s. Sunflower-seed meal was not the
most
desirable livestock feed, and therefore was not used in
this way,
but by the 1980s most Spanish households used the cooking
oil it
provided because it was less expensive than olive oil.
About 8 percent of the cultivated land in Spain was
devoted
to legumes and to industrial crops. Edible legumes were
grown in
virtually every province; French beans and kidney beans
predominated in the wetter regions; and chick peas
(garbanzos) and lentils, in the arid regions.
However,
Spain was a net importer of legumes. Although consumption
of
these crops declined as the standard of living improved,
domestic
production also fell.
Sugar beets were Spain's most important industrial
crop.
Annual production in the mid-1980s averaged about 7
million tons.
Cultivation was widely scattered, but the heaviest
production was
found in the Guadalquivir Basin, in the province of Leon,
and
around Valladolid. A small amount of sugarcane was grown
in the
Guadalquivir Basin. Sugar production, controlled to meet
EC
quotas, was usually sufficient to meet domestic needs.
Although small quantities of tobacco, cotton, flax, and
hemp
were also cultivated, they were not adequate to fulfil
Spain's
needs. But esparto grass, a native Mediterranean fiber
used in
making paper, rope, and basketry, grew abundantly in the
southeastern part of the country.
Data as of December 1988
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