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Spain’s new ‘old’ agriculture minister: What’s on the menu for Luis Planas
Recently re-elected socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has put Planas in charge of the agriculture ministry for the third time, amid challenges such as Spain’s severe droughts, rising prices and a lack of generational renewal in farming.
Spain’s re-appointed minister for agriculture, Luis Planas, has promised to continue to prioritise the triangle of “youth and women, water and digitalisation”, signalling that, in his third term in office, he will stick to his established course.
The Spanish Union of small farmers (UPA) welcomed Planas’ “vast” experience and reappointment, but said some of his promises “are urgent measures that the Spanish countryside has been awaiting for far too long”.
On the other hand, Spain’s Young Farmers’ Association ASAJA said Planas has been “the most pernicious minister (…) since the advent of democracy”. Asaja criticised the “very negative effect” of the CAP in Spain’s southern region of Andalusia and Planas’ “poor defence of the sector against third countries”.
Putting forward a law on family farming and a national food strategy to promote rural employment and improve dietary patterns “will be the main lines of action to modernise the agricultural and fishing sector”, said Planas. He pledged to improve irrigation systems, promote ecological and regenerative agriculture, and make progress in decarbonising and renewing the Spanish fisheries fleet.