ABSTRACT
This chapter will present an overview of the modernisation of agriculture in the Mediterranean region, concentrating particularly on the four countries of Southern Europe which are members of the European Union (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece), and four countries of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya). Before analysing the modernisation processes which have transformed agriculture in these regions, we need to outline a few of the key enduring geographical features which shape the region, and some of the ways in which agricultural production was organised in the period up until the end of the Second World War. This introductory historical and geographical narrative will build on that provided by Dunford in Chapter 9, and reference should also be made to Tables 9.4 and 9.6 in that chapter.
