Farm subsidy and rural society in Andalusia

Abstract

In Andalusia, rural communities contain a disproportionately high number of people who are either unemployed, underemployed or involved in temporary low-paid occupations. As a result, social welfare policies have been used to sustain the livelihoods of the most vulnerable social groups and to promote economic development of rural communities. If we consider them with respect to the satisfaction of basic human needs, government payments have been successful in combating poverty and deprivation. However, government payments have also generated other pervasive impacts in rural areas. The converging interests of workers and employers have resulted in extensive fraud. Moreover, people have become accustomed to the system, which gives them meagre access to consumption, but discourages them from enterprise. This paper, towards a qualitative methodology, examines the consequences of the farm subsidy, originally designed to alleviate the farm unemployment problem in Andalusia.