IENICA REPORT: PORTUGAL

Introduction

Portuguese agriculture is based on the cultivation of a large area of winter cereals (small grains, wheat, barley, oats and rye), grown as rain fed crops; some spring crops, which can be produced under good irrigation systems, like tomato for processing and rice, and other crops maize and potatoes that in some farms can be properly irrigated or not. Sunflower is a non-traditional crop, mainly grown as rain fed Spring crop. A large area is cultivated with perennial crops, such as fruit trees (fresh fruits: apples, pears, peaches and oranges); nut trees, (almonds, hazelnuts, filberts and chestnuts), grapes for wine and olive trees are also grown. These crops are part of the agricultural production; we also have a large area of forest. (Tables 1, 2 and 3 )

Table 1 - Area(x1000 ha) with agricultural crops

Source: Moreira, sd

Table 2 – Total production (x 1000 t) of different crops

Source: Moreira, sd

Table 3 – Area with forest crops

Source: Moreira, sd

Climate and soils

Portugal is located in the Southwest of Europe, with a Mediterranean climate, rain during the winter and a very dry and hot summer. The inter annual variability of the rain is very large, which usually causes an extreme variation in the yield of rain fed crops, like winter cereals. An explanation for how the climate varies in Portugal from North to South, the annual rainfall average from 1539 mm in Braga to 453 mm in Faro and the annual average temperature changes from 14.4 to 17.8 ºC.

Travelling from West to East, the conditions are more continental, with less rain as we approach the Spanish border and with a bigger difference between the winter and summer average temperature. The variation in rain is similar to the temperature. During the months of June, July and August, the wettest places may get 100 mm of rain, and the driest only 20 mm.

The soils are poor (normally low pH, low organic matter content and low phosphorous content); there are erosion problems in some regions as the country has a lot of small ranges, with extreme slopes and there is a lack of relay flat areas.

Technical background of farming

The agriculture in Portugal is very diversified, from North to South. The instruction of farmers is very diverse, within each region and from one region to the other; the younger farmers having a higher degree of education.

The goals of each type of enterprise are different: we still have self-subsistence farms and others that are totally market orientated. The first type is mainly located in the northern part of the country, where the farms are very small (Table 4).

The most developed sectors are among the wine and the milk production areas. In table 4, we have some general indicators that show us such differences between regions.

Table 4-Some technical indicators for the different agrarian regions

Source: Rolo (1996)

1 –Area used per enterprise

2 – Area used for crop production per unit of agricultural work

3 – Area with crops per total area of the enterprise

4 – Power from machinery divided by area

5 - Power from machinery divided by number of workers

6 – Number of "adult head of cattle" divided by the area

Agricultural production

Historically, Portugal has always had a shortfall in cereals, mainly wheat, as it was the basic food crop. This wheat production shortage was one of the reasons for the Portuguese expansion to Africa and latter to Asia and South America.

Due to the poor climatic conditions for agricultural production, the self-sufficiency in several commodities is low. Table 5 presents the values for several of them

Table 5 - National Production, Import, Export, Used and

self-sufficiency of several commodities.

A) Cereals

Source: INE (1996)

B) Wheat

Source: INE (1996)

C) Maize

Source: INE, 1996

D) Potato

Source: INE 1993

E) Total of seeds and fruits oleaginous

Source: INE (1996)

non food industrial crops

At the end of last century several fibber plants were cultivated in Portugal, Table 6, identifies the plants and the textiles manufactured.

Table 6 – Production and utilisation of textiles plants, in the beginning of the 20th century.

Source: Cincinato, 1900

These textiles plants today are cultivated in a very small area and dominated by the flax. The others, were forbidden to be grown to protect the production in the former colonies or they lost their value as an industrial raw material.

Today the production of fibber crops is very limited, with the exception of the forest products used for paper pulp, chip wood and other industrial uses.

Flax and Hemp are now being produce, specifically due to the subsidies paid, but the raw product is transformed mainly in Spain. The cultivated area is quite small and the interest in the production is manly due to the subsidy and not the demand.

Textile Industry

Portugal has a large textile industry but the great majority of the raw material used, like fibbers, starch and dye, are imported.

Sugar beet

The crop is quite new, no more them 5 years in Portugal, as the sugar production was based on sugar cane, produced in the former colonies, till 1974.

Research on non food industrial crops

The research on these topics is basically found in two institutions: Ministry of Agriculture and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). At the moment two research projects, funded by Ministry of Agriculture, through the PAMAF program are being carried on. A project in oil seed rape and another with aromatic plants mainly used as herbs, but considering alternative uses.

The FCT had financed two projects on the following themes: one is "Production of essential oils from Rosmarinus officinalis and Thymus martichina and the other "Determination of the composition of the essential oils of the genus Juniperus in Portugal".

In the past, a few reports were published on sugar beet, Kenaf in 1991 and 1992; six cotton studies, from 1976 to 1982; and some reports on tobacco and lupinus.