00:00And now let's get to the facts, which include Gonçalo Matias, the President of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.
00:09Gonçalo, good evening. Today we're going to talk about agriculture and farming in Portugal.
00:13How has agricultural production evolved in our country in recent decades?
00:17Well, in recent decades agricultural production has been relatively stable.
00:21There was there in the early years, in the early decades, between the 60s and the 80s,
00:26there is some increase in production and then it has fundamentally stabilized in recent years.
00:34Here with an increase, we can place it around 0.6%.
00:38So a fairly low increase.
00:41In any case, we also have some differences here in relation to the type of productions.
00:46In the case of animal production, as I said a moment ago, there was a large increase between 62 and 82.
00:53Then some stabilization.
00:55In the case of agricultural production, it has been essentially stable,
00:59since here we are talking about the base index, 100, right?
01:01So we are thinking about this evolution.
01:04In plant production, a decline in the first years and then a stabilization and a more final increase.
01:10But, ultimately, agricultural production in Portugal has been essentially stable, without major fluctuations.
01:16And in the last 40 years, what products have we produced more and what products have we produced less?
01:22When we look at this data, there are some surprises here.
01:26Because we will see that there is a large increase, especially in more recent times, in olive oil and olives.
01:33Therefore, this olive grove, olive oil and olives sector has a very significant impact on our plant production.
01:40Also vegetables, fruits, cereals, wine and grapes.
01:44Wine production is also on the rise here, although it is a sector that is currently under great pressure.
01:49But perhaps the most curious fact about this graph has to do with potatoes.
01:54In other words, there is a negative production of potatoes.
01:57Therefore, Portugal is currently importing potatoes.
02:01It does not produce enough potatoes for consumption.
02:03This has a very simple explanation.
02:05Later, we will take a closer look at this data.
02:07But there is a very simple explanation.
02:09It's cheaper to import potatoes than to produce them.
02:12Because today there are other places, other countries, especially in central Europe,
02:17where potato production is cheaper.
02:20When we look at animal production, poultry, eggs, milk and pork come to mind.
02:27and sheep and goat meat there are practically zero.
02:31And then a big reduction in beef.
02:35This has two explanations.
02:36One has to do with the public health belief that eating red meat is not good for your health.
02:43And therefore, this idea that there is a decrease in the consumption of red meat as something favorable to health.
02:50But it also has to do with price.
02:51Obviously, when we compare the price of beef with poultry, beef is more expensive.
02:56And therefore, the various fluctuations of the economic crises that Portugal has suffered in recent years
03:02in fact, led to a very significant decrease in the consumption and production of beef.
03:07There are several factors that explain the change in agricultural production in Portugal.
03:13One of them is, for example, Portuguese consumption, which has been changing.
03:17What other factors also contribute to understanding and explaining changes in agricultural production?
03:23Well, we can look, for example, at this aspect, this factor.
03:27It is a very important factor to do with the agricultural surface used.
03:31And here there is a very significant change.
03:34When we look at 1962, 78% of the surface was cultivated area.
03:4022% meadows, permanent pastures.
03:43This is practically reversed.
03:45Today, more than half of us have meadows and pastures.
03:49And less than half, 47%, cultivated surface.
03:52Therefore, we had a large decrease in cultivated area.
03:56Rodrigo, there is an important aspect here that we need to look at.
03:59There is a great abandonment of our rural area, of our rurality.
04:04We'll talk about that when we talk about people.
04:07There is a great abandonment of the land.
04:09And therefore, there is less land today to be cultivated.
04:12There are more lands that are abandoned or given over to pasture.
04:15Precisely. The map of agricultural holdings has changed a lot.
04:18And truth.
04:19No, it doesn't mean, we'll look into that too,
04:21it doesn't mean that this has less productivity or that we are producing less,
04:24but it means that, in fact, we have less cultivated area.
04:28When we look at the number of farms,
04:30and I think this data also helps us a little to understand our doubt,
04:36we see from 68 onwards a significant increase in large agricultural holdings,
04:43over 50 hectares, 32%, there is an increase of 32% and then a drop of 52% in medium and small farms.
04:54Now, what does this show?
04:55It shows that that small family farm, practically for subsistence purposes,
05:01or for a relatively small sale, has been disappearing.
05:05And what has increased?
05:07The corporatization, the increase in agricultural exploration area,
05:13and agricultural exploration which is mainly handed over to agricultural exploration companies.
05:17That have the ability to scale as well.
05:18That have the capacity.
05:19This is not bad news, mind you.
05:21This is not bad news because it shows that our country has become a less dependent country.
05:26from subsistence farming and became more professionalized in agriculture.
05:33Ultimately, it is necessary to see if there is a transfer of land and productive capacity from one to the other.
05:39And there probably wasn't.
05:40Then here we also have to think that there are many people, and we will look at that,
05:44there are many people whose families worked in agriculture for generations,
05:49the new, more qualified generations stop working in agriculture.
05:53Which raises the problem for the next frame, the problem of labor.
05:56Because there is a huge difference in the number of workers available to work in Portuguese agriculture.
06:03I think this is an impressive figure.
06:05Despite everything, there may be a positive and a more negative aspect, but this is an impressive fact.
06:10Since 1962, we have lost 87% of our workforce.
06:1687%.
06:16Therefore, there is a sharp drop in the workforce.
06:20Despite everything in recent years, since 2012, the salaried workforce has recovered a little.
06:24And here it has a lot to do with immigration, it has a lot to do with the ability to attract immigrant workers to the agricultural sectors,
06:33but there is a huge shortage of labor available to work in agriculture.
06:39Rodrigo, several explanations for this.
06:40One, what we were saying.
06:42In other words, many people who have qualified since 1962, many families whose children have qualified and have not stayed to work in agriculture,
06:51outsourced, came to the service sectors, to the cities, went abroad,
06:57therefore they stopped working in agriculture.
06:59Another explanation has to do with robotization.
07:02Today agriculture is much more sophisticated than it was in the 1960s.
07:07And therefore, today it is possible to extract productivity from the land with less use of labor,
07:14with a less intensive maneuver, because technology allows us to extract this productivity.
07:19I would also like to point out that 2012 was a truly remarkable year.
07:23for a reversal of the decades-long downward trend at various levels,
07:27as we have been seeing in the various graphs, particularly here in the issue of labor.
07:31Let's now see how the productivity of Portuguese agriculture has evolved.
07:35Yes, the productivity of Portuguese agriculture has evolved.
07:40Here we look at the productivity of land and agricultural labor.
07:43So, on the one hand, what can we get out of the earth
07:46and on the other hand, what can we get out of the work of those who work the land.
07:50We compared this with southern Europe.
07:52And we see that we are essentially average here,
07:55but in more recent years even well above average.
07:59Therefore, we managed to increase productivity here.
08:02In agricultural work, the same thing.
08:03And we have been experiencing some fluctuations, in general,
08:06on average or even above the southern European average.
08:09So we are doing well in agricultural productivity.
08:11And all of this contributed, I imagine, to an increase in the profitability of agriculture.
08:15Undoubtedly.
08:16Our agricultural profitability has shown very interesting numbers.
08:21We have managed to climb, over the years, once again here in 2012,
08:26as a year that shows a shot.
08:28But, since 82, there has been a constant increase in terms of income from the agricultural sector.
08:34Again, explanation for this, the introduction of technology,
08:39the introduction of new agricultural techniques.
08:41And therefore the ability to, with less land, with fewer people,
08:45withdraw the same or even more income.
08:46Despite this, Portugal is not self-sufficient in all products.
08:50In which ones are you self-sufficient and in which ones are you more dependent?
08:53Here, when we look at our production, we will see that, for example,
08:56we are, at this moment, not producing enough for what we consume.
09:00In what?
09:00In wheat, in barley, in corn.
09:02We've already talked about potatoes.
09:04We have to import potatoes.
09:06In the dried fruits we are there, one for the other.
09:08Therefore, we practically produce the nuts.
09:11But in the sector that has been growing considerably in the last 5, 6 years.
09:13Exactly.
09:14And with high prices too.
09:15In terms of milk, we managed to produce and export something.
09:18The same goes for butter, a lot of it in rice and a lot, as we've already said, in olive oil.
09:23In olive oil, we produce what we consume and still have significant export capacity.
09:29Thank you, Gonçalo Matias.
09:30Thank you very much.
09:30We were talking about agriculture, facts that continue to matter more and more to our reality.
