The Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organizations (COAG) begins a pressure campaign on parties and administrations to demand that a subject be created in primary and secondary education on how food is produced, our agri-food wealth and its connection with health.
The need is urgent if we want to guarantee that someone can continue living in the territory... but also in the city. And the fact is that, with the distancing of this agrarian reality that previously made up our daily landscape, the metropolitan view of rurality has been emptied of knowledge and loaded with prejudices. Disney has done a lot of damage, it is often said. The filter of mass culture has both idealized and idiotized the image of the countryside until it makes us believe that civilization ends at the limits of the city.
As for the countrymen, when they are not seen as squatting intruders in a supposed environment that will only be idyllic when it is no longer anthropized, they are seen as the noble savage, a kind of happy Mowgli in his naive ignorance of urban reality. . Endearing characters because they are uneducated, simple and rude, visible - from afar - on weekends on wine tourism excursions returning to a past that has already been overcome.
This tremendous view denies not only the capacity, but also the right of the agrarian environment to the future and innovation. How many times has the city been defined as an essential framework for such types of ideas? Giving in to this mental framework - both in the city and in the territory, because the dominant culture ends up dominating the dominators and the dominated - irrevocably condemns our agriculture to disappearance, to the delight of the truly naive who will continue to believe that the entire countryside must be jungle. …until the fires destroy their bucolic Yupi worlds and hunger makes them aware that only a productive food system guarantees our right to food.
Oh man, they will say, the defender of rural lost causes is here again: farmers, shepherds, inns, towns, regions, agrobiodiversity, local gastronomic heritage and other endangered species of this vacuum-cooked Spain.
Yes, once again, like Cassandra, a cry of alarm, of warning, but with will and ideas so that it becomes an opportunity. A view always from innovation that, when he does it well, is attentive to technological developments and business formats, without ever forgetting that the devil knows more because he is old than because of what he sees on TikTok.
Without forgetting that, to design the future of rural territory, one cannot start from the same premises as in urban prospective. It is not the same to think about solutions or look for opportunities (also business, I insist) for environments where there is a lack of space than where there is plenty, with high or low density, with strong business activity or not, with a deficit of green spaces or on the contrary, with abundant services. in the immediate environment or the other way around... But that's what innovation is really about, right? To take advantage of opportunities by adequately dealing with various weaknesses and strengths.
In rural areas it is not appropriate to appeal to economies of scale, but many costs are not as high as in the center of the capital. Everything in its place. Instead of repeating inappropriate patterns, you have to know the fabric well to get the best tailored suit. For this we need educated citizens, conscious consumers, bold entrepreneurs and responsible politicians.
Educated to think outside the urban box without prejudice, understanding, for example, that the tavern can be more important for the municipality than the town hall assembly hall, because nothing should prevent plenary sessions from being held there, and if they end up sharing a good lean with tomato with your glass of wine, maybe even the agreement is easier.
When we think about it, the taverns may not be able to act as hospitals or outpatient clinics, but they can serve as premises and offices for some things that are convenient for experts in health, education, care and social rights, I don't know.
It also seems evident that it is in the territory where we must first experiment with telemedicine, artificial intelligence applied to distribution logistics or drones dedicated to transportation, among other technologies.
Everything is yet to be done, the thing is to start learning what has been unlearned, until we understand that we need each other to live.
