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10 ANALYSIS AND PROSPECTIVE STUDIES CULTIVAR Issue 22 APRIL 2021 tural trade deficit in food products that negatively impacts its trade balance in goods and services. Regarding inflation, food, beverages and tobacco account for almost 25% of household expenditure. In her article, Martine Durand, former OECD statistics director, returns to the debate on GDP’s limitations as an indicator of a nation’s well-being and progress. She recounts the history of this important variable and the criticism it has faced. She also looks at the initiatives proposed to overcome its inadequa- cies, stressing that the aim of policies “ is not just to grow the economy but to improve people’s lives ”. The author also mentions that this is not an easy task, above all because it implies moving away from con- cepts and measurements to assessing the reality of people’s lives. Cultivar issue 21 – Agroforestry systems. December 2020, p. 27 9 Agroforestry systems, particularly their agrogeolog- ical services, need to be better valued. However, this process is not devoid of new points of conflict. If tension previously resulted from competition for (and segmentation of) land for specialisation/ mechanisation, driven by the goal of “economic effi- ciency”, the current conflict results in the specialisa- tion (and segmentation again) of land use driven by the goal of “environmental and climatic efficiency”. The uniqueness of Portuguese agroforestry systems within the EU deserves attention, since it has often been misunderstood by the CAP (centred on a com- partmentalised and uniform division of farmland) and ignored, on its integrated side, by climate policy (centred on the view of forestry and afforestation as variables in the adjustment of energy policy). Francisco Avillez, Miguel Vieira Lopes and Gonçalo Vale characterise Portugal’s agroforestry systems in terms of types of farming, Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) and the impacts of current CAP measures, underlining their importance in fulfilling the new 9 https://www.gpp.pt/images/GPP/O_que_disponibilizamos/Publicacoes/CULTIVAR_21/#28 10 https://www.gpp.pt/images/GPP/O_que_disponibilizamos/Publicacoes/CULTIVAR_2/E_book/CULTIVAR_2_O_SOLO/64/ 11 https://www.gpp.pt/images/GPP/O_que_disponibilizamos/Publicacoes/CULTIVAR_7/E-book/CULTIVAR_7_O_Risco_na_atividade_eco- nomica/88/ environmental and territorial goals and analysing their main economic results from the perspective of increasing the sustainability of the entire system. Section II – Observatory Cultivar issue 2 – Soil. November 2015, p. 63 10 In this issue, soil is discussed as a key natural and economic resource. Since it is finite and irreplacea- ble, home to most of the biosphere and the planet’s largest carbon sink, its preservation is crucial. For Portugal, this topic is of particular relevance given the current unfavourable circumstances, with a low rate of formation of generally thin soil and the per- sistence of undulating or sloping land with equally adverse geological characteristics. The consequence of these physical features present in most of Portu- gal is low land productivity with the inability of exist- ing soils to supply the necessary nutrients for plant development, which is exacerbated by the risks of climate-related erosion. In this updated analysis of the changing use of soil and land in Portugal, Rui Pereira, from the GPP, shows how different forms of land tenure and their contexts lead to different developments and differ- ent solutions. Cultivar issue 7 – Economic risk. March 2017, p.89 11 Risk is inherent to economic activity. There is always an uncertain set of elements between the decision to produce something and the moment production is converted into profit. This has been heavily stud- ied by economic theory, especially in recent years. Primary sector activities (agriculture, forestry and fisheries) are not unique in this respect, but they have specificities due to their exposure to the envi- ronment and long production cycles in some sub- sectors. GPP’s Ana Rita Moura presents up-to-date economic data on the agrifood and forestry sector and draws