Generational Renewal in Spanish Agriculture: Identifying Farm Desertion Hotspots

Funder: Fundació Bancària "la Caixa"

Call: Social Research Call 2023 (SRC 2023) (Fundació Bancària "la Caixa")

Of Regional scope.

While there is no consensus on the exact extent of the young farmer problem, it is clear that a combination of social, economic, environmental, and political challenges are jeopardizing generational renewal on European farms. Understanding inter-connections of environmental and socio-economic factors and their impact on generational renewal (GR herein after) is paramount to devising policies that can overturn this dynamic. While the lack of GR is repeatedly portrayed as a major challenge for Spanish and Western agriculture broadly, there are few studies assessing the problem at a wide scale. Moreover, while the problem is broad, it cannot be generalized or homogenized. The aim of GRANGE is to generate understanding of the inter-connected drivers of GR dynamics in Spain. The project will develop regional indexes of GR as well as identifying farming desertion hotspots. These are areas with a high vulnerability of experiencing land abandonment and traditional knowledge loss, which in some specific cases may open up the case for the entrance of new actors such as investment funds. Importantly, the project will explore climate change vulnerability and changes in land tenure structure as factors shaping GR dynamics. By this, GRANGE adds important missing elements in GR scholarship. Results will be used to co-design policies that can enhance the entrance of new farmers into agriculture while supporting small and medium-scale farming.