Current situation
Andalusia (NUTS 2 code ES61) is one of the most relevant agricultural areas in Spain and also in Europe. It accounts for 87,597 km2 and a population of 8.4 million people, and it is the fourth largest region in the EU-28. Agriculture is key in the region accounting for 9,280 M€ of GVA and employing 268,000 people. Andalusia is the main olive oil world producer with ~1.5 M ha of dedicated area producing 1.1 million tons of product per year. The region is considered as a transition one under the 2014/99/EU directive.
The selected instrument is the “M11: Ecologic agriculture”, which is included in the national programme (2014ES06RDNF001) and detailed in the regional development plan (2014ES06RDRP001) for the period 2014-2020. It is derived from Article 29 of the 1305/2013 EAFRD regulation. This measure aims to increase the presence of ecological exploitations, contributing to the fourth national priority “Restore, preserve and improve ecosystems related to the agriculture and forestry”. In particular, the measure has instruments for promoting new ecological exploitations and for maintaining existing exploitations as well. In addition, the measure is divided into two sub-measures, one for olive production and other for the rest of exploitations.
Improvement potential
This AGRICORE use case will analyse the M11 measure influence on Andalusia’s olive sector, focusing on its environmental and climate impacts. The ex-post analysis will be done for the period 2014 to 2017 and the ex-ante analysis will be done for the period 2018-2020. To that end, AGRICORE will use several databases including FADN, FSS, Aquastat, UNIFCC, LUCAS, SIGPAC, the national Spanish Statistical Office (INE), ESYRCE and regional/municipal sources. In addition, participatory research conducted among policy makers, supervising organisms, farmers and agriculture associations will be done for complementing the gaps in the recovered information. The biophysical models to be used will include a dynamic growth model for the olive tree aimed to the calculation of production indicators and to the quantification of the related environmental and ecosystem service impacts.