Surely you could have had a grant to replant?
How much on top do you receive from the EU?
We were in Crete a few weeks back, there they were making upto 14000 per 100 olive trees per harvest, plus 16000 from the EU in subsidy, obviously the original 14000 is mostly subsidy too but not direct. However much of the land is derelict orchards because many prefer not to go to the trouble of harvesting and just get the 16000 instead! Go figure, paying people to do the harvesting is still only a fraction of the 14000!

Going back to the original thread what I meant was that a good proportion of the rural properties sold over the last decade or two have had problems getting the correct paperwork etc for resale. The owners in a lot of cases did thier homework and paid for legal advise and double checked with the relevant local councils. A combination of dodgy "estate agents " crooked officials at the local councils, lawyers who have mis-led buyers and retrospect government laws have left a lot of people in deep s---t.
As far as I am aware those homeowners who bought on " urbinisations " have had no problems gaining the relevant paperwork for resale when needed. ( unless somebody knows different )
Of course it is your money and your dream and you are free to do as you please but there are many on this forum and the rest of Spain who would say proceed with caution. I repeat be very very careful .

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Either the folks in Crete were pulling your leg, or Crete must be the place to move to.
Any money from crops here is for pin money, that is why the land is so cheap. I have 106 olive trees which are worth more as firewood than as olive oil. Fortunately I dont need the trees to provide me with an income 
Whatever you are told you will not be able to support yourself from a plot of land here through olives grapes cherries carobs or even cucumbers.
I would strongly recommend coming over at different times of the year and seeing what its really like. Holidays are one thing and living day to day is another.
You mentioned 7c average temp in winter...does that mean 14c in the day and -7 at night.
It all depends on if you want a back to nature type holiday or if you want to live here.
And rural is best anytime

Well they do produce virgin olive oil and the land is very expensive especially if it has productive olives or other crops. As I understand it Spain is better known for eating olives rather than quality oil.
Are you registered with the EU? Your olive orchard most certainly will be and I would be very surprised if someone is not claiming a subsidy for your land (does any local farmer do you a favour such as cutting weeds or do you pay someone?). Checking it out should be easy as it should be available on the internet for all to see also you can see what your neighbours are receiving in subsidies, that might come as a shock. By law all farmland has to be registered with the EU and all businesses working the land such as yourself, otherwise you would probably be liable for fines for collecting things from the wild and selling them which is a relatively recent law going through or passed, I only heard about that one a year ago!

That seems to be the case everywhere, local councils do what they want regardless of the law for example.
The subsidies are up for review in 2013, if they are stopped 96% of British farmers will go bust (farmers weekly figures not mine). Two thirds of the current EU budget goes on farming, many farmers have been making a fortune, smaller farmers have still been making good money particularly in the med region. It is possible they will cut the subsidies, they are also in talks to bring about free trade with South America, how many farmers, beef or otherwise could compete with them? The agricultural subsidies are to be replaced by subsidies for rural businesses that create employment, if an area will not even allow people to build houses how much money will it receive from the EU, zilch I expect. By the way Organic farms and farms that produce local specialities, rare breads etc receive very much higher funding, as do those that have rare plants growing.

I would say 1000 euro an acre is very realistic. Four years ago I had figured out the same price and could have bought many finca's in that pricerange. Prices haven't really going up since Of course there is no 'house' included in this price, just a ruin.

The main problems you will encounter will be with building something on such land. It is not impossible but you will have to consider if you have the time, money and spirit to go this way. The easy road is to pay some more for a finca with a legal building already on it.

Good luck, Mark

Nigel wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 8:06am:


I'd like to see this too.

It simply is not possible to make a living from small fincas here. Look around and you will see a lot of scrubland. If you could make a good living from the land this scrubland would all be planted with crops of various types. The fact it isn't should tell you something!


I was also under the impression that EU grants were only available if you had more than a certain amount of land. Many fincas here are only small plots of land way under the amount required to get grants. I will look into this when I get a chance.

OK this is not the official site and it took me a few tries to even open the page ; http://farmsubsidy.org/ES/location/0/aragon/

This shows an average. Plus whatever they receive for the crop.
From what I read Spain is one of the worst offenders for hiding the data, so maybe someone with very good spanish could locate their agricultural department website and the relevant area?
However looking into these figures if they are true I must apologies as these figures are incredibly low by what I have seen in other countries on the official sites!
Looks like the cooperatives and some companies are taking the lions share, but they should then be sharing it out to their members, shouldn't they?