The Montado / Dehesa Cow-Calf Production Systems in Portugal and Spain: An Economic and Resources’ Use Approach

Maria de Belém Costa Freitas (), Maria Raquel Lucas (), Lola Izquierdo and Claus Deblitz
Additional contact information
Lola Izquierdo: Agralys GbR, Meistersingerstr. 18, 14471 Potsdam, Germany
Claus Deblitz: Thünen Institute of Farm Economics, Bundesallee 63, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany

Land, 2020, vol. 9, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: The Montado in Portugal and Dehesa in Spain is a unique agro-silvo-pastoral system designed to overcome food needs in a scarce resource’s environment. The system competitiveness is not clear and it is now under severe threats, caused by extensification or abandonment of less fertile areas and by intensification in more fertile ones. The aim of the undertaken research is to compare the cow-calf production within these systems in Portugal and Spain, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and the main drivers of their evolution, and to compare these systems with other European countries’ systems, ranking their competitiveness and efficiency among other systems in the EU. The research indicates that Montado/Dehesa farms systems are dependent on the type of farming system, its context and management, i.e., on the decision and its context; so, in a context of Mediterranean land system changes, the future of the Montado / Dehesa ecosystem depends on the ability of the cow-calf production systems to face the future and to perceive the modifications needed to overcome new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.

Keywords: cow-calf systems; efficiency; competitiveness; benchmark (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/5/148/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/5/148/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:5:p:148-:d:356832

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().