Toledo.- The government delegate in Castilla-La Mancha, Francisco Tierraseca, participated this morning in the ‘Encuentro Mujeres en el Medio Rural’ in Toledo, organized by ASAJA, and thanked the president of ASAJA Mujeres, Blanca Corroto, for the invitation to attend the inaugural event of this forum.
The government delegate has said that he has attended this ‘Meeting of Rural Women’, mainly to listen to the problem of women in rural areas and, most importantly, in the voice of the women themselves.
Tierraseca recalled that “women have always existed throughout history taking care of the fields, especially in livestock farming, but in a very invisible way”.
“According to the Agrarian Census of the National Institute of Statistics – explained the delegate – only 30% of women in Spain are heads of farms and in Castilla-La Mancha this figure is below the national average with 28.12%, and often the management is not matched with the ownership of these farms”.
The government delegate in Castilla La Mancha said that he went to this forum to defend policies of positive action in favor of women in the agricultural sector as well and added that “the growth of the agricultural sector cannot be based on one of the parties, that is, women, and especially young women, having worse conditions or fewer rights than the rest of the agricultural sector.”
Tierraseca recalled that one of the measures to alleviate this problem was the incorporation of women who previously did not appear in the General Agrarian System of Social Security and today do so. “That was a very important step,” he added, “but I think there have to be other promotion figures to occupy a prominent place in the agricultural sector.”
In this regard, she referred to the latest reform of the CAP, which introduced a gender factor to promote the incorporation and participation of young women in the agricultural sector and also the efforts made by the Ministry of Education in agricultural vocational training for women.
The government delegate has been convinced that “in the next decade women will be the protagonist of the real modernization of the agricultural sector that Spain and also Castilla-La Mancha need”.
Grants to women's organizations
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain works on measures to combat gender inequalities in rural areas and promote the incorporation of women into agriculture as a way to combat depopulation and ensure the demographic sustainability of rural communities.
One of them is the modification of the regulatory bases for the granting of subsidies to rural women entities of national eremu, which are in the process of hearing and public information. This aid is intended to boost the role of women in rural development and it is hoped that the approval of this decree will make it possible to speed up the management of this aid.
The Ministry foresees that the call for these grants for the year 2023 will be in the amount of 500,000 euros and will be part of a set of measures in favor of gender equality in the agri-food sector.