30. #Ruraldepopulation: women in Spain bucking the trend

Spain is one of the EU Member States with alarming level of rural depopulation: while the population of Spain increased by more than 15 per cent between 2000 and 2018, in the same period it fell by 10 per cent in rural areas. And women often have a particularly hard time: in the EU as a whole, 23 per cent of farms are run by women, compared to just 19 per cent in Spain. But while more and more young people and women are leaving rural areas due to lack of prospects, they are also considered to be one of the key factors in keeping the population in the countryside – and even bringing people back. The rule of thumb is: if the women stay, the chances increase that overall, more of the total rural population will stay. And Spain is also one of the EU Member States that is taking the issue particularly seriously. Keeping young people – and especially women – in the countryside is specifically encouraged here. In many Spanish regions, this can mean higher start-up aid for women to set up a business and higher complementary income support for young farmers. This latest podcast in the "Food for Europe" series, at the start of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union, looks at the policies that promote women remaining in, and returning to, rural communities – and includes successful examples of new business start-ups by women. Our guests on this programme are entrepreneurs Natalia Suárez Álvarez, Berta Valgañón and Nazaret Mateos, who have all set up businesses in the Spanish countryside, and Elvira Bakker, Head of the CAP Strategic Plans and Rural Development Programmes Unit at the European Commission for three Member States (Ireland, Spain and Portugal) and Rural Development Programmes for the United Kingdom.