“Portugal thanks Portuguese farmers, and especially CAP, for 50 years of defending Portugal”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa this Tuesday during the opening session of the Commemorative Congress of CAP’s 50th anniversary, in Lisbon. At stake is the sector’s contribution to the protection of the rural world, particularly noted in the lower incidence of fires in areas where fields are worked and explored, but also to the “economic and social cohesion” of the country. At the event, which brought together hundreds of participants at the Pavilion of Portugal, in Lisbon, the President of the Republic also recognized the role of farmers who, in their union through the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP), defended national interests in Brussels in the negotiations of the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC). “CAP’s negotiating power was decisive for Portugal’s negotiating power. Not just in the CAP, but in everything. In Portugal’s global position”, he highlighted, alluding to the period of the country’s entry into the European Union.
There are, however, challenges that cannot be ignored. From the outset, he points out the difficulty in implementing community funds and the administrative bureaucracy that, as in other sectors, affects agriculture. “Agriculture complains about this”, he notes. For what lies ahead, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa says he has confidence in the Government’s commitment to the sector and the general challenges that affect the national economy, but he also says he has special confidence in farmers and the institution that represents them. “Farmers denied that agriculture had no future in Portugal. It did and has a future”, he said. Aware of the international situation marked by uncertainty and what he considers to be a political tendency to devalue less populated territories, the president of CAP recalled that “the rural world cannot be seen as a relic of the past”. On the contrary, Álvaro Mendonça e Moura guarantees that agriculture is a modern, resilient and indispensable sector for the country. “There cannot be a strong Europe without modern agriculture”, he pointed out, stating that the institution and farmers are willing to fight to avoid a weakening of the CAP.
“Farmers are willing to fight for this Europe and we will speak out again whenever necessary. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise”, says Álvaro Mendonça e Moura. Alongside sustainability, which the sector has sought to guarantee through innovation and modernization, the relationship with society is a challenge for those who make the land their life. And he promises: “For those who have dreams of going backwards, be they governments or mayors, know that you will always find CAP along the way”. On the first day of the congress, sociologist Manuel Braga da Cruz, NOVA SBE professor Luciano Amaral and António Barreto, former Minister of Agriculture, were also present.
Discover the main conclusions below.
From labor supported by a hoe to dependence on services
- Manuel Braga da Cruz recalled that “Portuguese society has changed profoundly in these 50 years”, having gone from being mostly rural to a tertiary, modern and more urban society. As a result, it became “older, more educated and individualistic”, more free and democratic, but at the same time “more polarized and radicalized”.
- Evolution, considers the expert, “has conditioned Portuguese agriculture and the rurality in which it operates”. He recognizes that there are fewer farmers and producers today, but “better agriculture and greater production”. If it is true that the sector has become more professional, it is also true that it depends “increasingly” on European agricultural policy and this, he says, raises challenges for a country the size of Portugal.
- Luciano Amaral, on the other hand, focused his intervention on a detailed analysis of the country’s economic transformation to conclude that, since 1974, Portugal has had “great difficulty in returning to a trajectory that allows high growth and external balance”. The professor recognizes that the country has, in recent decades, become closer to high-income economies, although it remains difficult to “converge in a sustained manner”.
- From a quarter of the national workforce allocated to agriculture at the time of the Carnation Revolution, the Portuguese economy today has less than 5% of workers in this area and more than 70% in the tertiary sector.
- The challenge, he emphasizes, is to find sectors “capable of leading us to greater growth in the future”. “It may be that they appear, but for now they are nowhere to be seen”, he concludes.
- For António Barreto, the interventions of the two experts “help to understand that social progress was immense” and that, although positive, “it could have been better”. “For many decades, Portugal and its authorities have been unable to organize a society and an economy capable of guaranteeing the existence and well-being of its citizens”, he laments.
- The former Minister of Agriculture – the first, as he recalls, to officially receive the CAP – recognizes, however, that the agricultural sector “performed poorly or mediocre” from an economic point of view. In fact, like the country that, with the exception made between the end of the 80s and the end of the following, has had difficulties in growing. “The country still has a large debt to pay to farmers today”, precisely because it gave “more attention and support” to other sectors and not this one.
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