Un essai d'analyse des relations entre le développement agricole et le développement global au niveau régional en Espagne

The aim of this study is to analyse the connections which exist in Spain between the non-agricultural development of a region and its agricultural development. In order to study these relations a multicriteria approach was used, employing two methods of data analysis (principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering methods). These methods were applied to individuals (in this case "provincias" characterized by twenty-two variables). Ten of these variables define the level of overall and non agricultural development in each " provincia " while the other twelve characterize the agriculture of the region. A primary analysis of the relations between the variables for all fifty of the Spanish " provincias " indicates that an important non-agricultural development in a region is a sufficient but not necessary condition for a rich agriculture. In the second stage, a study was made of the relationship between agricultural and non-agricultural development in the interior of three groups of "provincias", these being significantly differentiated with respect to their agricultural structure and their geographical characteristics. This analysis revealed, in each of these three groups, a fairly close relationship between the two types of development. The conclusion arrived at by means of the two analyses mentioned above, is that non agricultural development in a region brings about an agricultural development, although this is conditioned by the agricultural structure of the region. The existence, within each of the considered groups, of rather heterogenous provinces does nevertheless indicate that the non-agricultural development of a Spanish region considerably influences its agricultural development.