The increase in the area under cultivation of durum wheat in the eight traditional areas of Spain is quantified. A regression analysis of the cultivated acreage against the deficiency payment is carried out in order to explain the facts registered from 1986 to 1992.
As an average figure the 51 per cent of the total outcome of durum growers comes out from European support and the remaining 49 per cent it is from the market sales.
Such a procedure is a driving force to accurate the incomes of the tetraploid wheat growers. The deficiency paments play a role as much against both market risks and natural hazards. At the same time they provide with more than a half of the gross benefit before harvesting as soon as sowing takes place.
The efficiency of the response is so remark that the aproximately 100,000 hectareas under cultivation of 1989 rises up to more than 600,000 ones in 1992.