From Monday to Monday, at the mercy of the cold of winter, the heat of summer, and the phenomena of fall and spring, farmers and ranchers live day after day for their land and their animals. It is your life. After more than 30 years of dedicated work, living in rubber boots and overalls, the vast majority of rural residents in Spain see retirement approaching.

For other professions, retirement is synonymous with relief; However, the relationship with tractors, alpacas, calves, pastures and ultimately the field is different, especially if the rancher looks away and sees the challenges of maintaining his ecosystem.

As COAG (coordinator of farming and livestock organizations) shows, the Spanish livestock industry is clearly aging. 56% of ranchers have reached or will reach retirement age within the current decade. Mass exodus of 95,000 generation members baby boom This is one of the major problems facing our livestock industry.

Finding oxygen in its youth seems more than necessary for much of the livestock sector, which faces its final years at the foot of the canyon. “If my children don’t continue to work on our farm, it will disappear. You can sell cattle, but it is very difficult for someone to buy the whole farm,” explains Roberto, a dairy farmer in Villoruela (Salamanca). His eldest son, Alejandro, 22, with a technical degree in physical and sports animation, made the leap into the animal husbandry profession and the world his father needed, realizing that his cycle at the helm of the family business was getting closer and closer.

“It is impossible for young people to start from scratch in the village. The best option is to continue the family business, as in my case. Becoming a farmer from scratch is not viable. You have to buy livestock, equipment, tractors… you can rent land, but maintain it from month to month…” he points out in a conversation with Independent Alejandro, who estimates that the investment from nothing “will amount to about a million euros for a family farm on which you can live like ours.”

Helping generations in the village

The case of Alejandro, a professional dairy farmer since September 2022, is special because his path was different at the beginning: “I saw my fellow tertiary sports education students looking for work, devoting 12 and 14 hours a day for a lousy salary. and I said, “I’ll stay with my father. After all, I’ve enjoyed being a rancher since I was a kid, and whenever I could, I’d go to the farm with him to help. Little by little I was tempted by the idea of ​​trying, and I’m happy for now.”

Alejandro’s decision has transformed the farm, which employs non-family members, employs 120 cows and produces 650,000 liters of milk per year. “I used to think a lot about what would happen to our company because it is an investment for life and if no one continues it will be lost. Alejandro’s registration is necessary to improve and modernize our businesses. That’s what I used to do. don’t think about embarking on further expansion because that means going into debt and taking on a risk for just over 10 years that is likely to be unprofitable; however, now they approach it differently,” says Roberto.

Father and son highlight the challenges facing towns like theirs, with a population of just 700 people, in Castile and León. “What we have is agriculture and livestock. If there is no help, livestock farmers and therefore cities will disappear.” Roberto justifies his work: “We must maintain the independence of agri-food production in Spain to avoid pressure from third countries,” and emphasizes the importance of encouraging the integration of young people in the countryside: “Those of us who are here, now the moment will come when we will have to retire and not give up this important activity.

One of the main obstacles Roberto faces in employing youth is that livestock farming requires “a lot of money to run. Our working tools are very expensive.” This year alone, Roberto invested 50,000 euros in a slurry vat and another 20,000 euros in other tools. “To this we must add 90 thousand euros for a five-year-old tractor, plus equipping it with a trailer, cultivator, sulfator… The price of equipment has skyrocketed in recent years. Now you can go to the bank and ask for a million. euros, since you don’t have support, they won’t lend it to you,” adds an experienced rancher from Villoruela.

Help for agricultural corporations

Luis Pérez, COAG Agricultural Youth Coordinator and a young sheep farmer in Cantabria, clarified that the pace of company registration in Spain is “clearly insufficient.” The Court of Auditors report compares data from all European countries (except Croatia) and ranks Spain 19th out of 27 for youth entry into the agricultural and livestock sector.

“In a very complex geostrategic context, where food security and sovereignty in Europe are no longer taken for granted, the Spanish countryside brings together all the ingredients to lead EU food production and become the economic and social engine of our rural environment. Less bureaucracy, more real support for young people who want to devote themselves to livestock farming, access to land and a food chain that fairly and equitably distributes the value of food from field to table are the best guarantee for the consolidation of profitable agricultural production. The government and autonomous communities should pursue a model of livestock farming with ranchers in rural areas,” Perez said.

Ranchers insist it is important to protect the young people who take power this decade. “For those who join now, there is less help than when I joined. The registration plan is for a maximum of €100,000 and you don’t buy anything. If Alejandro’s registration plan is 300,000 euros, at best your maximum assistance will be 100,000 euros. But you should also know that they do not give you 100% and that you must deduct VAT. Everything has increased a lot, especially in recent years , and you cannot have the same support now as you did 35 years ago when I joined,” laments Roberto and concludes: “We are lucky that Alejandro is joining a consolidated operation, but if he had to start from scratch with 100 000 euros, it would be impossible.”