On Saturday, January 20, CEIGRAM asociate researcher Tomás García Azcárate, agricultural economist and Vicedirector of the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography of CSIC, participated in the radio program A vivir que son dos días, on Cadena Ser, along with Marcos Garcés, farmer and regular collaborator in the program, and Manolo Presas, Galician fisherman.

In this program, entitled “working conditions in the primary sector”, topics such as the difficulty to attract the talent of new workers to the rural sector, a problem that Spain shares with its European neighbours, the urban-centrism and the separation of food production sites and the main consumer centers, and even cultural elements such as the social discredit suffered by the professions of the agri-food sector, have been discussed.

Tomás García Azcárate argues that, despite the high employability rate of agricultural and agri-food engineering (95%), there is a continuing deficiency of professionals. On the other hand, he stresses that there is no green agriculture in the red, indicating that it is essential to appropriately value and remunerate agricultural and livestock farms, so that they can offer attractive working conditions that can cope with both the lack of prestige and the hardness of the work itself. Having food at prices that are too cheap makes some people forget the costs and efforts required to produce it. Defending sustainable agriculture must go hand in hand with the defense of decent prices for farm products.

If you are interested in listening to the complete program (in Spanish), you can access it through this link: https://cadenaser.com/audio/1705748530281/