Search

History of the rural world of Portugal may justifiably begin in the present with the major problems affecting Portuguese agriculture, demographic contraction in the countryside and the uncertainty that prevails in the re-conversion of rural areas. The historical evolution of the Portuguese agricultural sector has given it a particular stamp. Several of the problems affecting Portuguese agriculture today could already be seen as the end of the nineteenth century: for instance, poor productivity, the increase in smallholdings in the north and the existence of latifundia to the south. According to authors, although the rural development prospects they have outlined for the Portugal space are subject to a number of conditioning factors, there is one general and irreversible structural base: the limitations of a society open to change and competition within the European Community and the world system. Portuguese rural space is not necessarily obliged to evolve as a clearly defined outcome of economic activity arising from a urban-industrial continuum, determined by the economic progress and growth of developed Europe. The emergence of new social needs, which prove impossible to achieve in the urban space will cause the evolution of rural space in Portugal to lengthen and deepen, both conceptually and in real life.