The close relationship between biophysical degradation, ecosystem services and family farms decline in Spanish agriculture (1992–2017)

In this paper, we examine the evolution of Spanish agriculture from 1992 to 2017, exploring the specific relationship between the agricultural population and the provision of agroecosystem services (AE-S). Traditionally, family farming has sustained the quality of the biophysical fund elements of agroecosystems through the work that family members have invested both in productive and reproductive tasks. Therefore, changes in the size and composition of the agricultural population and farm types are bound to have consequences on the quality of such fund elements and, consequently, on the AE-S provision. To verify this hypothesis, we adopted the Agrarian Metabolism approach. The results showed that the value of Spanish agricultural production has continued to grow thanks to productive specialisation and the increase in irrigation, protected crops and intensive livestock farming. This has led to a significant increase in intermediate consumption, to the detriment of agricultural income. This, in turn, has favoured the growth of a more intensive agricultural sector, which is environmentally pernicious, and has dramatically reduced the number of family holdings. The receding of family farming has led agroecosystems to deteriorate, due both to the fall in the amount of work invested in reproductive tasks, and their exclusion from land management.