Primary Sector Evolution: 1999-2009

Abstract

nalysing the current situation of agriculture is very important because the economy in a lot of regions is based on this sector. For this reason, the present scenario in many regions mirrors that of agriculture. Farms and their structural evolution over the last decade allow us to see the effects of factors such as the economic crisis and the changes in Common Agrarian Policy (CAP) on this sector and the economies of some regions.

In this sense, European countries compiled agrarian censuses in 2009 and 2010 to comply with the legal regulations established by the European Council in order to obtain a framework or directory of farms that could serve to carry out sampling designs for sectorial agricultural surveys. These censuses have been elaborated in Spain since 1982 and are the main source of primary sector information.

Thus, in this paper we have used the agrarian census data from 2009 to analyse the current situation of farms. In addition, information from the 1999 agrarian census has been used to ascertain the main changes that have taken place in these farms during this decade. This analysis has made it possible to determine the main effects that the worldwide economic crisis has had on farm structure and, therefore, on the hard-hit agrarian economy.