Spain has more than 2.32 MH of abandoned and uncultivated agricultural land
According to calculations by the Spanish Paying Agency FEGA, the acreage of abandoned and uncultivated land for agricultural purposes in Spain amount to at least 2.32 million hectares.
Abandoned agricultural area is that which shows an incident of abandonment or fallow for more than 5 years, according to the geographic information system for agricultural parcels, the EU instrument to control the CAP aid schemes; its acronym in Spanish is SIGPAC and is controlled by the Spanish Paying Agency (FEGA).
According to this, there are just over 94,000 hectares declared in CAP aid applications, which, because of subsequent controls, have been classified as abandoned land.
Of this total abandoned area, 66.7% corresponds to arable land, highlighting the regions of Castilla-La Mancha (15,309 hectares), Murcia (12,879 hectares) and Aragón (10,740 hectares).
Another 33.1% corresponds to permanent crops, highlighting Castilla-La Mancha (8,517 hectares), Valencia Region (6,023 hectares) and Andalucía (5,252 hectares).
However, it should be noted that this area represents only 0.5% of the total declared agricultural plots, which, in 2017, exceeded 18.22 million hectares.
Furthermore, FEGA estimates that the uncultivated area in Spain amounts to some 2.23 million hectares, representing 7.4% of total area declared for CAP aid support.
Nearly 48% of this unused acreage is arable land, another 43.2% is permanent crops and the remaining 9.1% is permanent pasture.
Source: Agronegocios