It’s simple: When you want to implement a sound policy in the public interest, you plan—drawing on your knowledge and experience— consult with others, secure the necessary support mechanisms (legislative, financial, administrative), implement the policy, and evaluate it.

The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food of Spain has released the draft bill on family farming for public consultation, with the aim of strengthening the family farm model, to which it assigns a strategic role for the future of the agri-food sector and the socioeconomic and environmental development of rural areas, as well as in the fight to address rural depopulation and strengthen social cohesion in rural areas.

In fact, Minister Luis Planas points out that this was one of the legislative commitments of the Sánchez government, aimed at updating the landmark Law 19/1995, on the Modernization of Agricultural Holdings, which marked the 30-year process of modernizing the country’s agricultural sector and adapting it to the new social, economic, and regulatory environment of both the country and the EU.

Under the new regulation, the Sánchez administration aims, through a series of policy measures, to establish and prioritize the family farming model, ensuring the necessary measures for access to land ownership, financing, new technologies, demographic renewal, and the empowerment of women. In fact, it highlights the necessary changes to the legislative framework and other policies that are related to or complement agricultural policy.

The ministry’s announcement states, among other things, that while innovation, digitization, and new knowledge and techniques enable more efficient, profitable, and sustainable production, family farms, due to their smaller size and difficulty in accessing financing, often find it more difficult to make the necessary investments or to benefit from the advantages offered by economies of scale.

For this reason, the legislative initiative to provide special support to family farms will take into account the new reality on the one hand and update the regulatory framework to modernize family farming on the other.

L. Planas even refers to the importance of public dialogue in improving the plan and insists on the participation of all stakeholders in the agri-food sector, including organizations and citizens.

Let's keep a few key points in mind:

First, the Spanish have submitted and are implementing their Strategic Plan under the new CAP, but they are also updating and adapting their legislation, based on their strategic goal, to strengthen the family farming model. In Greece, by contrast, family farming is shrinking, and we are rapidly heading toward a two-tiered agricultural system, with no plan for the future, and no one seems to care.

Secondly, this policy is complemented by other policies, such as that of the Ministry of «Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges,» which contribute to addressing climate change, protecting biodiversity and the natural environment, strengthening the ecological and social production model, and addressing demographic aging, regional depopulation, and the effects of high out-migration from rural areas. In Greece, by contrast, not only do these policies fail to «align,» but they actually conflict with one another.

Third, they submit the bill for public debate and consultation, seeking as many contributions and discussions on the bill as possible from across the sector. In Greece, by contrast, dialogue and consultation are limited to a clientelistic political audience of their own.

Fourth, they are fulfilling their campaign promises. In Greece, campaign promises come to nothing; breaking them has no political consequences.

Fifth, the design and governance of agricultural policy are characterized by stability and structural adjustment. In Greece, «ad hoc politics» and the management of a fleeting day-to-day reality with no future prevail.

Sixth, ...the political system and politicians do not view the Ministry of Agriculture as a chore or a place of exile. L. Planas has been Minister of Agriculture since 2018—for nearly 6.5 years. He is a politician with extensive experience in the Spanish Parliament and the European Parliament. In Greece, by contrast, we have had five different ministers in the past six years alone. All of them aim for a quick and painless exit in search of «something better,» leaving agriculture and farmers to fend for themselves.