cattle-ranching activities between agricultural businessmen, through which they established complex relations of vertical coordination. This mechanism enabled the sector as a whole to introduce technology at a very high rate, as well as significant economic and commercial development. Thus in the 1950s and ‘60s, the foundations were laid for the creation of a very effective cattle-ranching sector which at present represents the main production complex in the food system, and includes the manufacture of animal feed, cattle-raising and the meat industry. In the 1960s, the intensive production of early vegetables and some fruits for export purposes also began. Its development was based on high investment, rapid incorporation of technology and new varieties, making use of specific agricultural and climatic conditions (scarcity of water and long hours of sunlight) and, particularly, on the rise of a new type of firm endowed with a large amount of capital, and which was capable of integrating agricultural production with end marketing. As a result, the fruit and vegetable export sector grew very quickly and became consolidated as one of the great resources of the food system. Wine and oil continued to be highly important sectors that played an active role in exports. In these areas, one particularly important change was the creation (with the explicit sponsorship of the State) of a wide network of local cooperatives responsible for the first transformation of the fruit, while leaving the bottling and marketing of the resulting wines and oils in the hands of large companies with their own brands. This division of labour in the production chain is still the main feature of both sectors today. Another sector that showed strong development was the dairy sector, which was definitively boosted by the Plan de Centrales Lecheras (Central Dairies Plan), as well as the sectors dedicated to sugar and canning and freezing of fruit and vegetable products. It was at this time that what has become called the “traditional agricultural crisis” took place. This involved a decline in the active agricultural population and the number of farms, the progressive introduction of technology and new industrial consumables into agricultural activity, the increasing vertical coordination of farms with food industries and the growing factor of agricultural businessmen turning to external financing. At the same time, the new food industry was favourably affected by the higher profits that were generat-
ed by economic growth, the improvement in communication channels and the availability of new technologies and packaging materials, together with the development of advertising. The development of the food sector also benefited from the number of political aid initiatives, many of which took place under the framework of the State Development Plans. It is also worth mentioning that the changes undergone by the food and agriculture sector from the 1970s onward made the agricultural policy from the post-war period obsolete and stimulated new institutional initiatives aimed at encouraging the modernisation of the system. Among the most important of these initiatives were: the development of the foreign trade organisation rules, the creation of FORPPA (Organisation and Regulation Fund for the Price of Agricultural Produce), the wide-ranging revision of the policy on markets and prices, the definitive loss of power of the Union Organisation, the dissolving of the CAT and the modification of SENPA (National Agricultural Products Service, the heir of the National Wheat Service) and the passing of the Wine Statute, the APA law (Agricultural Producer Associations) and the Special Agricultural Regime of the Social Security.
From the political transition to the end of the century With respect to agriculture, the political transition resulted in the creation of a new system of communication between the sector and public administration. Many of the laws that were passed at the beginning of this period had been drafted during the final phase of Francoism and were aimed at modernising the sector. One of these, the Agricultural Insurance Law (which facilitated the creation of the Spanish system of agricultural insurance against risk) has proved to be one of the best of its kind in the world, and has enabled the rational management of agricultural and climatic risks. The Moncloa Agreements dealt with a number of issues that were specific to the agricultural sector, including the definitive replacement of the existing Union Organisation with the new associations of farmers, cooperatives and food industries. In economic terms, joint negotiations began between public administration and the new representatives for agriculture on price regulation and aid measures for each sub-sector,
and the result was a more rational absorption of the tensions deriving from the high inflation of the 1970s. The first half of the 1980s was marked by the slowness of Spanish institutions and pricing and market policies to adapt to EEC regulations, and which necessitated the elimination of the last obstacles remaining from autarchic policies. Spain’s entry into the EEC (in 1986) had very different effects in each sector. From the very start, the area of intensive cattle-raising was developed very well, and it made Spain’s into one of the most competitive producing countries. However, the sectors of cereals, oils and industrial plants suffered greatly from the higher productivity in other European countries. This circumstance led to closer links being forged between the Spanish cattle-raising sector and the European cereal sector, and France ended up becoming Spain’s main grain supplier. At the same time, after a few years of difficulties following Spain’s membership of the EEC, the more dynamic areas of Spanish production showed an excellent performance in the intraEuropean market, in spite of the occasional crises. Despite these initial difficulties, owing to the policy on production quotas that hindered the resizing of their farms, the restructuring of the dairy sector took place very quickly and in a few years went from being structurally inefficient and fragmented to being comprised of a small number of large farms that were more efficient. Business concentration was one of the greatest changes experienced by the Spanish food and agriculture system in the past 25 years. In the agricultural sector, the concentration process of continued apace, and between 1962 and 1999, the number of farms fell from almost 3 million to 1.8 million; furthermore, the industry’s growing verticalisation and the rise of service companies had wide-ranging effects. This process has resulted in the existence of a group of professionalised farms (around 450,000), many of which have been verticalised and which currently coexist with a large number of small farms. At the same time, the specialisation process has continued, both in farms and on a regional scale, as a result of which distances between the autonomic food and agriculture systems have increased. Another result has been the increasing number of wage earners, which calls into question agricultural policies based on the concept of the family farm.
231