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En los últimos tiempos también se observa una incorporación A recent trend has also been seen of young people with or without a la actividad agraria de jóvenes con un lejano vínculo familiar con el campo o carente de éldistant family tie to the countryside deciding to work in agriculture. No pueden acceder They are unable to access a una actividad agraria profesional tal y como se entiende hoy en día ya que tienen muy difícil el acceso a la tierra y además requieren inversiones económicas tan cuantiosas que quedan fuera de su alcanceprofessional agriculture venture as understood today as they find it very difficult to access the land and the huge financial investments required are beyond their grasp. Se suelen dedicar They usually work in market-gardening for their own supplies and obtain a actividades hortícolas con las que se autoabastecen y obtienen un excedente que suelen vender en mercados localessurplus that they usually sell in local markets. Lo habitual es que se dediquen a esta actividad productora con técnicas encuadradas en la agricultura ecológicaIt is common to find that they use organic farming techniques in their activity.
Otra razón que anima a la gente que dispone de tierra a cultivar sus propios alimentos es por “saber qué comen”Another reason that encourages people with land to grow their own food is “to know what they are eating”, es decirin other words, por controlar en la medida de lo posible la producción de los alimentos que consumen ante la duda creciente que generan los métodos empleados por la agroindustriato control the production of the food they eat as far as possible given the ever-mounting doubts about the methods used by agribusiness.
En este sentido se observan movimientos pendulares en los que se recuperan viejas prácticas si bienIn this regard, como es lógicopendulum swings have been seen where old practices are recovered even though, adaptadas a los tiempos modernosas is logical, they are adapted to modern times. Cuando a finales de los años 1980 concluimos el primer tomo del When the first volume of the Atlas dedicado a la alimentación domésticaon household food was completed at the end of the 1980s, ya se había abandonado la elaboración casera del panbread was no longer being made at home. La fabricación de este alimento ha experimentado desde entonces un progresivo proceso de “industrialización” que además de su abaratamiento ha acarreado una That food staple became part of a progressive “industrialisation” process that resulted in lower costs but also in a notable pérdida de calidadloss of quality. Como reacciónThis has led in recent years to a resurgence of artisan bread-making, en los últimos años se observa un resurgimiento de la elaboración artesanal del pan, con harinas muy parecidas a las que se utilizaron antaño y recurriendo incluso a la vieja práctica de la “masa madre”with very similar flours to those used in the past and even going back to the “sourdough” technique.
En la periferia de algunos municipios de carácter urbano se han acondicionado huertos con todos los requerimientos necesarios para poder cultivarlos y que son distribuidos entre las personas interesadasAllotments, ready to grow crops and which are allocated to the people signing up for the scheme, have been set up on the outskirts of some towns. Son la versión controlada y ordenada de una tendencia que siempre ha existido en los alrededores de las ciudades y de los núcleos de población importantes donde eran aprovechados los pedazos de tierra abandonados como lugares de cultivoThey are the organised and controlled version of a trend that has always existed around the cities and large towns where vegetables were grown on abandoned plots of land, por lo general por gentes que habían emigrado a los mismos desde el campousually by people who had migrated to the urban areas from the country. Las propias localidadesIn the past, towns, incluso las importantesand even large ones, contaron en el pasado con huertas donde cultivaban productos para consumo propio y su recuerdo ha quedado reflejado en la toponimia y en los nombres de algunas calleshad market garden where produce was cultivated for their own consumption and that is still reflected in place and street names.
En definitiva vivimos tiempos de profundos cambiosIn short, we live in times of far-reaching changes. La agricultura tradicional que aquí se describeThe traditional agriculture described here, en buena medida conservada tan solo en la memoria de nuestros informantes de mayor edadand which only remains in the memory of our elderly informants, tiene los días contadoshas seen its day. Sobrevive una agricultura profesionalizada cada vez más intensiva e industrializada y más dependiente de avatares políticos y económicos dictados muy lejos de los campos de laborAn increasingly more intensive and industrialised professionalised agriculture, and which is very dependent on the economic and political vicissitudes from the land itself, will survive. Pero a juzgar por los movimientos que se resisten a darlo todo por perdidoYet to judge from the movements that refuse to give up, it does not seem that this activity, no parece que esta actividadthis way of life, este modo de vidaso closely linked to our history and to our territory, tan ligado is going to totally disappear. This volume seeks to record that our rural folk and our ancestors knew and practiced agriculture on a nuestra historia y more human scale and from a nuestro territoriomore holistic approach, vaya a extinguirse. Sirva este volumen para dejar constancia de que nuestra gente del campo y sus antepasados conocieron y practicaron una agricultura cuya escala era más humana y con una visión más holísticawhere not only the yield is taken into account, but also the complex network of physical factors and human beings involved in an activity that, in short, donde no solo se tenía en cuenta el rendimiento sino también la compleja red de factores físicos y seres vivos implicados en una actividad que en definitiva se basa en cultivar la vida que nos da alimentois based on cultivating the life that feeds us.{{DISPLAYTITLE: Consideraciones generales sobre la agriculturaGeneral remarks on agriculture}}{{#bookTitle:Agricultura en Vasconia Agriculture in the Basque Country| Agricultura_en_vasconia/en}}
Texto reemplazado: «Labayru Fundazioa: fondo» por «Labayru Fundazioa: Fondo»
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=== Contents of the book ===
The workforce is also analysed, along with the importance of all the members of the family being involved in the agricultural work, regardless of their age or sex and neighbours working together. As regards the Mediterranean-facing side, the contracting of day workers is covered, particularly at harvest time, given the area involved and the speed at which the crops had to be gathered. The importance of animal power is also described, particularly at a time when the machinery as we know it today had still not appeared.
[[File:8.1_Faneuse_1896._Oleo_de_Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|500px|Faneuse, 1896. Óleo de Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924). Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 46.]]
There is a chapter on animal transport, particularly the ox cart given the key role it played, along with the yoke and all the accessories needed to harness the pair of cattle. The last chapter in this block addresses the mechanisation of agriculture and the changes that modern machinery have meant to farming.
Given the age of the informants and that part of the information was gathered decades ago, we have focused on farming from the end of the 19th to the mid-20th century.
[[File:8.3_Laietan_Zeanurin_(B)_1920.png|framecenter|600px|Laietan Zeanurin (B), 1920. Fuente: Archivo Fotográfico Labayru Fundazioa: fondo Fondo Felipe Manterola.]]
That farming was family-run, involved all members of the homestead regardless of their age or sex and focused on self-sufficiency or at least as far as it could.
That knowledge was not a rigid, but rather a permeable body of expertise, as the person who cultivated the land was always open to trying new seeds and even techniques, but from empiricism that meant checking that it worked. Despite the disdain shown by modern society, that knowledge was scientific to a certain extent as it was based on the technique of trial and error. Furthermore, it was accumulative as the knowledge gained by each generation was added to the received expertise and passed on to the following one. Thanks to this accumulated knowledge, each family also knew which part of its land was best for each type of crop.
[[File:8.5_Recolte_des_betteraves_fin_du_XIXe_siecle._Huile_d’Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|600px|Récolte des betteraves, fin du XIXe siècle. Huile d’Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924)''. Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 35.]]
[[File:8.7_Desherbage_late_19th_century._Oil_painting_by_Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|600px|Désherbage, late 19th century. Oil painting by Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924)''. Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 43.]]
This know-how came from the deep-rooted link that was established with the land. In the case of an economy based on self-sufficiency, there was no other option than to respect the land, as their very livelihood depended on it. In fact, unlike what happens today with agricultural fields, exposed to erosion and to the buildup of chemical waste, arable land in the past gradually improved with years of work and the best land was considered to be that which had been ploughed for generations.
Many of the holdings, particularly those that have to pay rent to lease land, would run at a loss without the CAP grants and a previously unknown situation of dependency has thus been created. The downside is the strict control of the farmer who has to comply with all the administrative red-tape or facing paying a fine. There is a huge difference between the relative freedom that farmers enjoyed in previous decades and the crop control of today, as practically all their activity is regulated.
[[File:8.6_Arracheuse_de_betteraves._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Arracheuse de betteraves. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
For example, farmers are currently required to leave part of their holding to fallow land or to use protein crops that add nitrogen to the ground, such as legumes, for which they receive a specific agri-environmental grant, on top of the general one for all crops. All the holdings of over 15 hectares have to earmark at least 5 % of the total to ecological focus areas: fallow, nitrogen-fixing crops, wooded areas and/or agroforestry. Furthermore, in order to diversify the crops, the CAP requires holdings under 30 hectares to plant at least two different crops, with the main crop occupying less than 75 % of the total; and holdings larger than three different crops with the two main ones occupying less than 95 % and the largest of them less than 75 % of the total.
In turn, the degree of complexity being achieved by the different authorities is reflected in the extensive legislation being enacted and in the complicated jargon that the farmers have to deal with. One example is the following paragraph which explains how to implement what is technically known as the “convergence” of the latest CAP reform, which covers the second half of the present decade:
[[File:8.2_Cosechadora_automotriz_de_cereal._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Cosechadora automotriz de cereal. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
[[File:8.8_Application_of_herbicides_in_lettuce._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Application of herbicides in lettuce. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
“Furthermore, it should be noted that the provisional values of the entitlements hereby notified are affected by convergence, in other words, a phased approach is calculated of the initial unit value to the regional average value in 5 identical phases from 2015 to 2015. Should the value of your entitlements be under 90 % of the average value for your region, they shall be progressively increased in order to reach in 2019 the increment standing at a third of the difference between your average and 90 % of the average for the region. However, should the value of your entitlements be under the average for the region, this convergence shall be funded by reducing the value of the payment entitlements whose value is over the average in 2019, with the maximum reduction being set at 30 % of the nominal value. If, after calculating the upward convergence, your payment entitlements are still under 60 % of the average for the region in 2019, they shall be raised to that 60 % of the average in 2019, unless that means the donors suffering losses over 30 %, in which case they shall be shifted towards 60 % even if they do not reach it. Finally, if the value of your entitlements is between 90 % and the average of the region, they will not be affected by this convergence process”<ref>Paragraph taken from a notification sent to all producers of the Basque Autonomous Community by the Agriculture and Livestock Directorate of the Basque Government’s Ministry of Economic Development and Competitiveness in 2015.</ref>.
It should also be noted that in tandem to the decrease in the number of people working in agriculture, groups of producers of all type have flourished and have resulted in the organisational structures of the authorities related to this activity becoming more complex.
[[File:8.4_Zizel-goldearekin_goldaketan._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Zizel-goldearekin goldaketan. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
Food self-sufficiency has decreased in rural areas to such an extent that the percentage of food bought from the agri-food industry is increasingly greater even in the homes of farm food producers. The weight that local produce has in the food of urban areas is practically nonexistent. A widening gap with the origin of the food consumed has also been observed. The response has been to run awareness-raising campaigns among consumers to highlight the importance of locally-sourced produce and some agricultural organisations defend concepts such as the so-called “food sovereignty”.
During difficult economic times, there is also a return to agriculture by the people who had left it to work in sectors offering greater financial rewards but which are more badly hit by periods of economic decline. In this regard, the land has always provided a guarantee of survival.
 
