European agriculture faces one of the most important challenges of the coming decades: ensuring generational renewal in a sector where the average age of entrepreneurs continues to rise, while fewer and fewer young people choose to invest in the land. But behind a common problem lie very different realities. In Spain, the main issue is access to agricultural land, in Italy multifunctionality has become the engine of new business models, while Greece and France face challenges related respectively to farm fragmentation and the competitiveness of production. Through data, analysis, and testimonies collected in the field, this series of reports, produced as part of the European PULSE project, tells how four Mediterranean countries are trying to build the future of European agriculture starting from the new generations. After the episode on Italy, here is the report on Spain.
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For decades, the Spanish countryside has told a story of depopulation and aging. Today that story has not changed, but a new generation is emerging trying to rewrite it. They are not just farmers or breeders: they are entrepreneurs who transform milk into artisanal cheeses, open their farms to schools, invest in robotics, use data to manage herds, and build business models capable of integrating production, processing, direct sales, and rural tourism.
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Generational renewal has become one of the priorities of Spanish agricultural policy. The reason is simple: about 40% of farm owners are over 65 years old, while less than 9% are under 41. An imbalance that reflects a trend common throughout Europe and that risks jeopardizing not only agricultural production but also the economic and social stability of rural areas.
For this reason, Pedro Sánchez’s government has announced new measures to facilitate young people’s access to land, creating a national platform to register available land and considering making about 17,000 unused public plots available. Madrid also intends to request that a specific share of the Common Agricultural Policy funds be allocated to generational renewal.
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But land alone is not enough.
