Multifunctional Impacts of the Olive Farming Practices in Andalusia, Spain: An Analytic Network Approach

Olive agriculture represents one of the most important economic activities in the region of Andalusia, Spain. Additionally to its economic importance the multifunctional character of agriculture and its wide territorial presence entails that it has a high potential incidence in the environmental and social dimensions of the sustainable development of the region. Despite this importance, it is hypothesised and aimed to be contrasted that olive farmers are not implementing the agricultural practices optimal from an economic, environmental and social point of view. Contrasting this hypothesis entails to evaluate with a holistic and systemic approach the multiple impacts of the different technical alternatives to diverse agricultural practices. The use of the Analytic Network Process, a Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis technique, will be illustrated as a useful approach to deal with this kind of problems characterised by complexity, lack of information and risk. The study will focus on the average yield, climatic, environmental, etc., conditions of olive cultivation in Andalusia. The results seem to confirm the initial hypothesis when comparing the current situation with different scenarios of optimal technical alternatives. In particular the technical alternatives implemented nowadays they are far from being environmentally optimal. The multifunctional benefits and the technical costs of a change from the current situation to these optimal scenarios will be analysed.