Working from home opens new possibilities for depopulated areas

GironaWork opportunities drive migrations. Without jobs, there is no chance of repopulating rural areas. But how can you create jobs in these areas beyond tourism and farming?

Josep Maria Piñol is a geographer and works for the Universitat Rovira I Virgili’s Local and Regional Economy department, and author of Innovation and rural development: the new paradigma in Southern Catalonia as a space for opportunity. He defends that promoting economic activity requires three essential elements. The first is guaranteeing citizens rights, and this “means that living in a rural area doesn’t entail a lack of essential services which the administration should offer; instead, governments claim there is not enough population to make these services viable, thus causing further depopulation”, Piñol explains. Secondly, transversal policies of positive discrimination, such as tax breaks, should be applied to rural areas. Finally, and above all, certain “infrastructure chokeholds”, such as poor electricity, internet and transport connections, need to be addressed in order to attract new companies.

Piñol believes we should follow the lead of other countries: “Scotland has university studies in rural areas and in Finland even the most remote village has access to hospitals and internet”. He also stresses the need for a network at a smaller county and village level, where basic services are spread around the territory. “If there are good communications, nobody will be left out and people would really be able to choose where they would like to live, as everywhere would have the same services and opportunities” he adds.

From lawyers to IT technicians

Nowadays, it is no longer necessary to be at work physically in certain jobs. A designer, an architect, a phone operator, an analyst, a historian, an IT technician, an accountant or a lawyer can work from home and only go in to work two or three days a week. Coworking spaces can be created in small villages where the self-employed can get together to share facilities. This is what the Associació Coworking already does across the country.

Moreover, green energy could also boost rural areas. For year, tiny villages such as Sinan have been working to disconnect from the grid and be self-sufficient thanks to solar energy. “Another strong point is historical heritage” adds Joaquin Recaño, Geography professor at Barcelona Autonomous University, who stresses its importance in rural areas. Managing forests could also be a source of jobs and would help prevent fires.

Inside the farming business, there is a great deal to explore, according to the president of the Association of Tiny Villages, Mario Urrea. Urrea, who is also the mayor of Torrebesses, believes the key is in differentiating their products by quality, not quantity. For example, Torrebasses has a cooperative oil press, where entrepreneurs can go and press their olives, get 2 to 5 litres of oil and sell it. The technical coordinator of the Associació d'Iniciatives Rurals de Catalunya, Eduard Trepat, adds that the incorporation of new farmers and access to land must also be promoted. "There are owners of agricultural land who do not want to buy or sell to outsiders, and we have to give a chance to young people who want to start and do not have land to work on". In addition, we must create a distribution network to bring local products from the land to the consumer.

More efficient administrations

However, for any family or company to set up in a village, administrations with resources and powers are needed. "Small village councils do not have the tools nor the budget to make the area more dynamic, nor do they usually have the capacity to dialogue with the Provincial Council or the Generalitat", says Jesús Burgueño, professor of geography at the University of Lleida (UdL), who also believes that "it is not good business to have village councils that are so dependent and have so little capacity to act". Burgueño was one of the authors of the Roca report that, 20 years ago, unsuccessfully proposed a territorial redistribution, grouping small municipalities and dividing the country into veguerias. "You can respect the local identity of each town, but if you share a single municipality, it will be stronger and have more resources. And an example that works is the Vall d'en Bas".

However, no policy or initiative will be of any use, stresses Trepat, if one does not begin to see the rural world "for what it is: a key and strategic area of the country. Because it is where food is produced and the role of the farmers is essential for food sovereignty".