HORTICULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN LOS LLANOS DE ALMERIA

The region, made up by plains of six municipalities (Roquetas de Mar, Vícar, Felíx, El Ejido, Berja and Adra), has a estimated surface of about 24.300 Ha., and has traditionally been a depressed area. The population was estimated 36.170 inhabitants by the 1965 year, and at nearly 72.000 by the 1981 census. According to this approach, the increase in the population must necessarly be due to the presence of a productive activity or set of activities which did not exist before 1965. The paper points out that these new activities have basically been tourism and vegetable growing. Fron 1975 onwards, however, tourism has gone into a deep crisis. On the contrary, vegetable growing under plastic cover is still increasing at the pace started at the last decade. This is interesting in that it seems to be an activity insensitive to the economic crisis that developed world has been under-going ever since 1973. The horticultural sector has been the principal motor of regional development. But, in this moment, this model, which began being basically endogenous even technological speaking, is highly dependent of the outsiders interets. In addition this, there are two large obstacles regional development: the shortage of water and the crisis of family farm (crisis of rentability).

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