Fourth Stakeholder Meeting in Galicia on 18th July!

On 18th July, our lead partner the Galician Rural Development Agency (AGADER) together with Fundación Juana de Vega hosted their fourth Down to Earth Stakeholder Meeting in Santiago de Compostela.

In the first part, feedback from the study visit to Neckar-Alb in Germany was presented and it was concluded that while some of the German experiences already exist in Galicia, others, such as the tram renovation project, showed a level of coordination and public-private cooperation that would be interesting to learn from.

During the second part of the meeting, the draft of the regional report on Access barriers to young farmers was presented. The report aims to highlight the challenges of depopulation and aging in rural Galicia, analysing its causes and effects and identifying the main access barriers that prevent young people from staying or moving to rural areas, which included lack of professional opportunities in the agriculture sector among others. Additionally, three new good practices were also presented, these included a mobile slaughterhouse service provided by the public administration to facilitate access to this service to isolated farmers, a communal workshop for farmers to transform their products, and a farmers-run distribution channel created by a cattle farmer’s cooperative.

The meeting concluded with collection of feedback for improvement resulting from the report’s analysis. Stakeholders' input will be considered in the final version regional report, maintaining a collaborative approach to ensure that the report adequately reflects the challenges and opportunities of Galicia's rural economy in a holistic manner.