Joan Raventós has been working the land for more than 45 years and is the son, grandson and great-grandson of farmers. His is a fifteen-hectare organic fruit and olive farm at risk of abandonment due to lack of replacement after his retirement at the beginning of next year. Many farmers in Catalonia are experiencing this same situation: the sector faces abandonment due to its low economic performance. In the last forty years, the Barcelona regions have lost 70% of their agricultural companies, according to data from the Barcelona Provincial Council.
Ricard Huguet, coordinator of Joves Unió de Pagesos, contextualizes the data. The situation in the sector is difficult; And if it was already bad before, the historic drought that the territory is experiencing has made it worse. “There are people who have not even harvested, and when you cannot survive economically, you have to make decisions,” Huguet points out.
A priori, it might seem that this panorama scares young people, since the figures also confirm an aging of the sector. Only 9% of the owners of agricultural companies in the district are people under 40 years of age. On the other hand, 35% are over 65 years of age.
However, in Barcelona (province) a current of new farmers is trying to gain strength to fight against the abandonment of the land; young people who do want to dedicate themselves to farming. These are characterized by coming mostly from the urban world, having university training in more than 50% of the cases and by being mainly creating companies within the ecological sector, also according to data offered by the Provincial Council.
And although this type of relief is still atypical, the La Beneta project, promoted by Marta Valls and Pepe González, is an illustrative example. If all goes well, they will manage the fifteen hectares of land that were going to be abandoned after the retirement of Joan Raventós, as farmers.
In addition, Gemma Raventós, daughter of the owner, has joined the project to provide marketing and social media support. Even though she did not feel capable of continuing with the relief alone because she lacks a hand with plants, she was very excited about Marta and Pepe’s proposal. “I grew up with one foot in the field, playing while my parents harvested and when I got older I got even closer to the crops; When I need to heal I go here,” Gemma describes.
Marta Valls and Pepe González turn thirty this year. They met at the Hostalets de Pierola public school, where they both studied. Years passed, but they maintained their friendship. Marta studied journalism and got a job in an editorial office in Barcelona; and Pepe studied nursing assistant and dedicated himself to caring for the elderly in nursing homes. But the feeling of not being completely happy, jumping from job to job, always found them.
Neither of them comes from a farming family, nor did they plan to dedicate themselves to the trade; But then, they received the news that Joan Raventós was going to retire with no one to continue his work and they decided to take over from him.
Pepe González says that he grew up riding a bicycle through those fields and how nice it was to experience that. “I felt that it would be a shame if in the future all that was abandoned, that future generations could not enjoy what we can,” adds Pepe. The young man wants to live and die in the town, strengthen the roots he has with it and argues that “being a farmer is a way of taking root.”
To this emotional motivation, Marta Valls adds two more: the condition of ecological cultivation that the fields of Raventós have and the defense of local consumption.
“Most of the crops in the area are vineyards. Joan’s were also like this before, but 18 years ago, he planted fruit trees and made the transition to organic. At that time, there was no specific market for this and Joan sold it at the traditional price,” explains Marta.
Joan Raventós did it this way at the time because he understood the land, cultivation and nature as a whole; Thus, the bee that pollinates is inseparable from the flower. “When you understand it like this, everything has a very important meaning and you seek to maintain its harmony and balance,” Gemma defends.
Pepe points out that, in addition, “this model is regenerative for the earth, since it maintains organic matter; more than a method of fighting climate change, which is also a philosophy of life”, while at the same time there is greater market freedom, since it is easier to set fair prices and dispense with intermediaries.
Regarding local consumption, Marta considers that relocation is the most logical way to proceed: that the food we consume is produced nearby. “If we do not energize rural economies, phenomena like empty Spain will happen,” she concludes.
Young people have encountered, however, different difficulties. New farmers face difficulties in accessing land ownership due to its urban value, especially in towns such as Hostalets de Pierola, which is located in the second metropolitan ring of Barcelona.
There is also the lack of social recognition that the profession of farmer receives, the high level of bureaucratization (which greatly complicates the transfer of land, machinery and business if there are no family ties) and the difficult access for people new to the sector. sector to the economic incentives and subsidies of the European Union CAP, which are not adapted to the contexts of new incorporations.
If the La Beneta project is proud of something, it is having Joan to accompany them. In Marta’s words, “without him none of this would make sense, it is his life project.” Joan, for his part, enjoys the task: “I would be sad not to be able to transmit all this knowledge to anyone; “This is the only inheritance we can leave as human beings.”
For now, the young people are working with Joan. They are trying to learn as much as possible, and are looking for funding that will allow them to continue moving forward (for which they have a digital crowdfunding campaign open) while combining jobs.
