Profesión e identidad en la agricultura familiar española

Abstract

This article analyzes the possibilities and limits of agrarian professionalization in Spain from the point of view of the opinions and attitudes of the farmers for whom agriculture is their principal activity. The article permits the identification of a hard core of younger farmers with middle-to-large-size holdings and with a preferentially fruit and vegetable orientation, who identify themselves as professionals or businessmen, and who show a relative fulfillment of the professional ideal. It is, however, an incipient process which runs into all kinds of limitations, not only in attitudes but also in institutions: on one hand, relating to the very nature of family farming and, on the other, relating to the absence of an adequate political-institutional framework.