The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, María González Corral, has highlighted that the eight Agrarian Vocational Training centers of the Junta de Castilla y León have already reached 761 enrolled students, which represents an increase of 28 percent compared to the students there were five years ago, in a sign that the sector “has a future.”
“More and more students want to join and want to train in these vocational training centers,” insisted the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, who also highlighted the “notable increase” in the number of female studentswhich has gone from 22 percent in 2021 to 38 percent this year and represents “almost four out of ten.”
González Corral has considered in this regard that the future of the primary sector in Castilla y León is in the hands of the young people who have opted for agricultural vocational training to join the sector through training in one of the eight integrated vocational training centers that exists in the Autonomous Community.
Likewise, he has vindicated the Ministry’s commitment to digitalization and new technologies to facilitate generational change and make agricultural activity more attractive and has given as an example of technological transformation the agreement for Students are trained with state-of-the-art agricultural machinerythe Digital Agrarian Extension program or the implementation of classrooms equipped with simulators, virtual glasses and drones.
“We do it thinking about the present and thinking about the future,” explained the counselor who took advantage of the occasion to remember that next Friday, October 31, The deadline to request aid from the call for the incorporation of young people will end and the modernization of farms endowed with 100 million euros and has expressed his wish that the “very good figures” of the last calls – in the previous one, aid was granted to 673 young people – could be repeated.
He also recalled that in this mandate he has launched a specific line to promote the succession of farms, which has facilitated the transfer of more than 150 agricultural holdings, for which it is “fundamental”, he claimed, to have a “solid” Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and “with a strong budget”.
In this sense, he has reiterated the rejection of Castilla y León to the CAP-post 2027 proposal, that cuts funds by 20 percent “and breaks its structural nature, by converting it into 27 different policies.” “We defend the professional model of the Community with the institutional declaration to which new members continue to join,” he stated.
On the other hand, he has announced that Castilla y León will host next year “two great national events” that will place the Community’s agricultural training on the European map: the ‘Forest Skills’, which will be held at the CIFP of Coca (Segovia) at the end of February, and the ‘Agrochallenge’, in April, at the CIFP La Santa Espina (Valladolid).
González Corral made these statements before presiding over the ceremony to present the Awards for Excellence to the students of the Integrated Agricultural Vocational Training Centers (CIFPA), which distinguished ten students. These awards, of an honorary nature, recognize the work of students with the best academic records from the Integrated Agricultural Vocational Training Centers of Castilla y León, as well as the efforts of the teaching staff and the support of families.
