Can livestock and agriculture save Spain from depopulation?
Alejandro Herrera is a young cattle rancher who lives in Fradelo , a town in the province of Ourense with only 47 inhabitants . Despite having been educated and living happily in his town, one concern gnaws at him and that is whether or not he will have to leave his cows and his town behind to survive.
In mormentelos , also in the province of Ourense, live Ángela Castro and her teenage son José. Like Alejandro, Ángela cannot imagine living in another part of the world nor dedicating herself to anything other than her sheep, but her town of 62 inhabitants is finding it increasingly difficult to get ahead.
Her son poses one of the greatest deficiencies in the rural world, internet connections . Because just as those of us who return to tourist towns boast that there is no coverage in them to disconnect from our urban stress, they, those who stay, fight so that there is. To stay connected to the world.
José wants to study and travel, although he loves his town above all else. The possibility posed by María Páez, secretary of organization of Agrarian Unions Region of Viana , is one of the most common that she herself has experienced. Train, travel and return with all that knowledge to the town.
Can family farming and farming save Spain from depopulation? Is it logical that thousands of towns and huge areas of a country remain deserted due to the overpopulation of cities?
These are two of the big questions raised by the documentary ‘Fallow. In the heart of depopulation', carried out by Diego M. Just Conesa in collaboration with the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers, UPA.
“With fallow we want to evoke that concept of land that rests but is not dead , but waiting to be worked on to develop its full potential. We believe that the Spain emptied it is not really, it is “in fallow”, waiting to receive support, work and investments to take advantage of the resources it saves, which are many. We hope that this documentary is a humble contribution to this fair fight for the future of rural areas”, Diego told Traveler.es.
One of the main challenges is get solutions to this serious problem that shakes our country. While Madrid continues to add inhabitants to its more than 3 million, our towns are emptying out, and they do so because people can't make a living , because they don't have the resources to do it and because the aid doesn't arrive, and those who are end up throwing in the towel.
They don't want to be heroes or heroines , as they say in the documentary, but citizens equal in rights to others.
Fallow, the documentary.
One of the main problems, as confirmed sarah bianchi , spokesperson for the network of sparsely populated areas of southern Europe (SSPA) is the digitization of these areas . The Scottish model can be one of the examples to follow for her, as she exposes in the documentary released last November.
“Barbecho premiered on November 14 in Madrid, and on the 15th on the official website. Later we have already made premieres in Orense and Cuenca, and we plan to do a tour of premieres throughout Spain. More than 15,000 people have already seen the documentary and the truth is that the reception is being very good. We believe that we have approached the problem from a wide variety of perspectives and that gives a fairly accurate reflection of the problem of depopulation. Always assuming that the fundamental premise of the documentary is demonstrate the capacity of agriculture and family farming to fix population ”, emphasizes its director.
It is not the first documentary made by the agrarian organization UPA, since two years ago it also spoke in 'Coexistence? Livestock and wolves (2017) on the conflict between livestock and the expansion of the Iberian wolf.
He marked a starting point to continue dealing with the issue of empty Spain, and from there Barbecho was born, which tries to capture both questions and possible solutions.
“Depopulation is a complex problem, and as such it will never have simple solutions. We believe that there are no magic recipes against this phenomenon , but we also believe that without agriculture and livestock, this rural population crisis will not be resolved. The documentary shows how in the territories where agriculture works, depopulation stops. We also interviewed many experts who, together, indicate the way forward to tackle this problem: with investments, supporting entrepreneurs who are committed to staying in their town, with infrastructure and basic services and with a long-term strategy”.
And from his perspective, the director of the documentary marks several urgent measures where you could start.
“The most urgent thing is to undertake investments so that living in a town is not an impossible mission. It is also necessary to ensure that the aid allocated to agriculture and livestock serves so that young people join the sector and stay in it. In addition, it is necessary to achieve rebalancing of the agri-food chain so that farmers and ranchers receive a fair price for their products , so that the farms are profitable. We must also achieve a change of concept at the national level to value the way of life and rural pride”.
Do you want to see it complete? Go to his website.