ABSTRACT
At the end of the Civil War, agricultural production had declined by one-third below its prewar level. The most important problem faced by the Franco government was to raise agricultural output to keep most Spaniards from starvation. The nationalist government was determined to abandon the agricultural policies of the Second Republic. The Republic’s policy goals of land redistribution and of juridico-social reform were replaced by a policy emphasis on technological reform. Measures dealing with the extension of irrigated areas, the consolidation of excessively fragmented small holdings, the improvement in methods of cultivation and the eventual colonization of improved lands constituted the core of the new government’s agricultural policy. The nationalist government had received the support of the landowning class during the years of war and was committed to the preservation of its pre-1932 property rights. Land redistribution thus commanded very little importance. Until the early 1950s, the government tried to improve, but not to change Spain’s ‘traditional agriculture’ in order to feed an active population which had increased by 20% between 1935 and 1950.
