Spatial Databases for Decision Support in Agriculture ERIC DE NORONHA VAZ Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão da Informação, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Centro de Investigação sobre o Espaço e as Organizações, Universidade do Algarve PORTUGAL TERESA DE NORONHA VAZ Faculdade de Economia e Centro de Investigação sobre o Espaço e as Organizações, Universidade do Algarve, Faro PORTUGAL mtvaz@ualg.pt Abstract: - The Portuguese agriculture has experienced phases of change and its adaptation to the Common Agriculture Policy. Although serious problems have subsisted as structural difficulties in spite of the many public aids, it seems that, slowly, agricultural productivity increased, integrating some technological progress. However, other expectations related to food auto sufficiency or a more balanced equilibrium in the food trade were however, not achieved. For that study, after having desegregated possible determinants of growth for the agricultural sector, the econometric results showed a stationary tendency for all the vegetal production variables; contrarily, some of the detected growth factors were correlated to animal production, particularly to pork, poultry and milk production. Beside, the classical econometrics, new methods could allow us to a more in depth analysis of the state in the Portuguese agricultural activities. Our research uses Geographic Information Systems to those prompt spatial databases for monitoring land use change. This short essay opens prospects for a much better understanding of rurality when all those factors contributing to its sustainability, much broader than agricultural activities will be evaluated under the methods earlier described. Key-Words: -Common Agriculture Policy, rural, Geographic Information System, land use change. 1 Introduction Since the eighties the Portuguese agriculture has experienced phases of change and its adaptation to the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) points out for some in depth developments. Although serious problems have subsisted as structural difficulties in spite of the many public aids, it seems that, slowly, agricultural productivity increased, integrating some technological progress (Table 1). However, other expectations related to food auto sufficiency or a more balanced equilibrium in the food trade were however, not achieved (Table 2). Table 1. Southern European countries labour productivity in the primary sector, for the period 1987 – 1997 Country 1987 (UM/UAL) 1997 (UM/UAL) % change Portugal 4075 4900 20,2 Spain 8653 15452 78,6 Italy 13041 22469 72,3 Greece 6410 8656 35,0 France 16395 28483 73,7 Source: European Commission, EUROSTAT The Portuguese consumption was increasingly composed of imports, more significant in the food industry than in the agricultural production, as it can be seen by the loss of self-sufficiency shown in the data below. Table 2. Level of self sufficiency for the Food Sector, for the period 1980 – 2000 Sectors 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Agriculture 78.4 75.9 80.8 74.6 74.9 Food Industry 93.8 94.1 90.1 85.1 83.6 Food Sector 86.7 83.2 86.4 81.3 80.7 Source: INE, Agricultural Statistics and National Accounts In summary, after 1986 and due to Portugal’s integration in the European Community (EC) most of the agricultural commercial flows took place within the European common market with two consequences: Firstly, an increase in the consumption levels of food and its consequent raise in associated imports; Secondly, international food distribution chains located gradually in the country and accessed 4th IASME/WSEAS International Conference on ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, ECOSYSTEMS and SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (EEESD'08) Algarve, Portugal, June 11-13, 2008 ISBN: 978-960-6766-71-8 563 ISSN: 1790-5095 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Sapientia