Figure 6. Survey economic variables comparison with income per capita in 1999
□ Survey □ One IncomeZcapita □ Doubled IncomeZcapita □ Tripled IncomeZcapita ■ Quadrupoled IncomeZcapita
5. CONCLUSIONS
Spain, main olive oil productor in EU, was not allowed to integrate in the same
conditions than the rest of productors states till 1996. But shortly, in 1998 a CMO for the fat
materials reform limited considerably Spanish olive oil farmers the possibility to get aids. In
spite of that, the sector, with new farmers’ incorporation experimented a big modernization
along that decade. In fact, more capital has been introduced in the farming to provide among
other aspects a high number of irrigated farms to guarantee a fix production per crop year
around three hundred thousand of olive oil tons.
It is evident that Common Agriculture Policy has had a decisive influence in the sector
behaviour in Spain and the evolution of the socioeconomic variables in olive oil farms;
economic agents have adapted to this changing policy and even some steps have been given on
the production merchandising to deal with the market with successful guarantee.
Respect to the aids that will be given within the new intermediate CAP reform we
consider that its effects will specially depend on the production level obtained in each crop year.
So, if the crop year has a mean or low production, subsidies will be inferior to what it will be
expected with the system before 2003 reform, but, if there is a high production, aids could be
higher to the ones expected before the intermediate reform. This is so due to the fact that aids
are established according to the mean of aids obtained in a reference period of four crop year.
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