STRUCTURE AND ECONOMY OF PROTECTED CROPS IN ANDALUSIA: A COMPARATIVE RESEARCH

Using a statistical sample of 315 horticultural crops surveyed in 1995 all over Andalusia (1,507 agricultural enterprises and 2,852 crops surveyed) we have researched the relationships between employment, total costs and gross margin.
Both cultivated area and employment level are used to homogenise the structural and economic parameters.
Employment is the critical resource in protected crops.
The hand labour structure varies a lot from protected horticulture to flowers, always protected.
Family and full time outside hand labour predominate in protected horticulture, being more than 50% in many cases.
The economic efficiency of this resource is, therefore, higher in nonprotected horticulture than in protected crops because its growth is more important than the gross margin growth.

A strong relationship is found between employment level and total costs as resource consumption in nonprotected and protected horticulture.
A relation exists also between employment level and gross margin in the same group of surveyed crops.
Flowers show a very variable pattern.

V International Symposium on Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climates: Current Trends for Suistainable Technologies

C.R. García Alonso, J.M. Martín Lozano, P.P. Pérez Hernández

Employment, Costs, Gross margin, Comparative study, Information Systems

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2001.559.103