García, CR

No

Adv. Ecol. Sci.

Proceedings Paper

Científica

✗

✗

01/01/2003

000185615100095

Andalusia is a very important agrarian region in the south of Europe. The cultivated area is above 4.1 million ha. (46.8% of the total surface of the region) where more than 400,000 farms develop their business (Garcia [5]). The existence of many small agricultural enterprises (more than 75% have less than 5 ha. of total cultivated area) makes it very difficult to analyse the Andalusian farm structure and the impact of new regulations (Garcia [6]). Approximately, it is easy to know the main productive profiles of Andalusian farms: more than 30% of them concentrate on olive trees, over 10% are mainly interested in cereals, oil seeds and legumes, and so on. But it is very difficult to understand how these crops are combined in an agrarian enterprise: there are "many agricultures" in Andalusia (Garcia [5]). In order to analyse the structure of the Andalusian farms, three macrosurveys have-been carried out since 1991: 1991 - more than 1,500 forms (Loring [7])-, 1994 - more than 1,500 forms (Garcia [6]) and 2000 - more than 2,000 forms (non published yet). Every relevant socio-economic parameter was included: the agrarian structure, machinery, crops, livestock and farm costs, the farm and the family revenue structure, marketing and sales, and so on (Garcia [6]). Using this platform - real data - a typology study is being carried out to determine different groups of standard agrarian enterprises, located in specific geographical locations. These farm typologies are used, for example, to analyse the impact of new EU regulations of the Common Agriculture Policy, that are under study at this moment. In this paper, we aim to introduce some multidimensional approaches to determine standard farm groups or typologies in our wide region and how they have evolved in the last ten years.