The economic crisis of the 1975-1985 period did not have a special effect on agricultural activities, although these were losing economic weight and active population. The evolution of employment in the primary sector (which includes fishing activities) in the Basque Autonomous Community is eloquent: from 66,300 jobs in 1975, there were 27,900 in 1988. In the case of Navarre, the evolution is also clear: from 37,000 jobs in 1975, there were 18,200 in the sector in 1988. In Navarre, in 1982, the agricultural surface area used was 516,954 hectares, of which 357,301 (69.1%) belong to the ownership regime, 72,304 (14%) to the leasing regime, 28,282 (5.5%) to the sharecropping regime and 59,067 (11.4%) to other tenure regimes. In that year there were 1,936 permanent salaried field workers and an undetermined number of temporary workers who worked 479,674 days.
It should be noted that mechanization and industrialization have increased strongly during this period. It is not surprising that the evolution of final agricultural production is positive. The value of final agricultural production in 1990 in the Basque Autonomous Community was close to 74,000 million pts. and in the case of Navarre it was 73,000 million pts. If these figures are compared with those of 1996, it can be seen that for the Basque Autonomous Community, final agricultural production amounted to 79,959 million pts. (corresponding to agriculture 33,087 million pts. and to livestock 30,673 million pts.) and for Navarre the value of said final agricultural production reached the figure of 94,174 million pts. (50,328 million pts. corresponded to agricultural activities and 43,814 million pts. to livestock). The value of forestry production, which grew throughout the 1980s and 1990s, must also be taken into account. If we analyse the evolution in the Basque Autonomous Community, we can see that in 1983 the value of final forestry production was 4,001 million pts, representing 9.4% of the value of final agricultural production.
The dynamics of final agricultural production in the Basque Autonomous Community has been upward throughout the 1990s, so that in 1999 it reached a value of 103,911 million pts., with agricultural activities accounting for a value of 52,233 million pts., livestock farming for 27,063 million pts. and forestry for 22,742 million pts. It should not be forgotten that when comparing the value of magnitudes for a decade, current monetary magnitudes have been used (current pts for each year), so inflation has not been taken into account as a corrective factor.
When examining the most important agricultural productions in 1996 and for the south of Euskal Herria, the following should be highlighted:
- The production of three cereals, wheat, barley and corn, together exceeds one million tons.
- Among vegetables, the volume of tomatoes exceeded 185,000 tons.
- Among the fruit trees, cider apples, table apples and peaches together exceeded the figure of 40,000 tons.
- Among forage crops, the volume of alfalfa exceeded 407,000 tons.
- The volume of wine reaches 1.38 million hectare liters.
On the other hand, agri-food trade in the 1990s continued to be in deficit. In 1996, agri-food exports reached a value of 69.359 billion pts, while imports amounted to 142.413 billion pts: the deficit for that year therefore reached 73.54 million pts. Breaking down this deficit the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre, it can be seen that it is the Basque Autonomous Community that bears almost 90% of the total deficit.
In the north of the Basque Country, agricultural activities continued to decline. While in 1975 there were 8,477 farms, in 2000 there were 5,939, and they were generally small (average size 23 hectares). The land is mainly used for pasture and fodder, with 35% of the land left for cultivation.