The Agri-Food Industry in the Spanish Regions: Potentialities and Opportunities in the Region of Andalusia

Abstract

The importance of the agri-food industry in Spain is widely recognised. Numerous studies have highlighted the economic impact of this sector on the Spanish economy, generating 15% of the country’s wealth. For this reason, this paper aims to present the territorial evolution of the growth of the agri-food industry in the Spanish regional economies as a whole in the period 1980 to 2018, focusing attention on the hypothesis of concentration in the agri-food sector of the New Economic Geography. Our method is based on the study of territorial disparities and econometric estimates. We find that the factors that explain the regional concentration of the stock of productive capital in the agri-food industry in Spanish regions include regional productive efficiency, the location and specialisation of the labour force, the size of the consumer market, the proximity to markets supplying raw materials and the territorial endowment of infrastructures. The competitiveness of the agri-food sector in Andalusia generates a source of potential and opportunities, although the lack of infrastructure has been limiting it. We propose a regional economic policy committed to investment in infrastructure in the Andalusian region. Besides, it is necessary to replicate the work with new data sources and methodology that allow us to contrast these results. JEL Classification: O14, O18, L66, R11, R30.