Spain's rural land plan stalls as registry problems hinder youth access
A government pledge to make state-owned farmland available to young farmers has not materialised, according to a report by the agribusiness NGO Cocampo.
The Sánchez administration announced a plan to review state-owned rural estates and offer them to priority groups such as young people, women and new professionals, but nine months later the initiative shows no progress. Cocampo’s latest analysis points to a fundamental flaw in the coordination between the property registry, which records ownership, and the cadastre, which holds fiscal and location data. This disconnect leaves many inherited farms untraceable and hampers any effort to re-distribute them.
The promised digital platform, Tierra Joven, intended to list available plots, has not been launched, and the government has not clarified how the lands will be transferred. Cocampo’s CEO Regino Coca warns that without fixing the registry issue, the scheme cannot address the ageing farmer demographic or the broader rural decline.
Why it matters
Land access is crucial for renewing Spain's aging farming sector and combating rural depopulation.
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