A team of experts of the University of Oviedo has just presented Competitiveness strategy of the primary sector and development of the Asturian rural area, which gathers 135 specific actions to invigorate and recover the activity of this sector. Professor Felipe Fernández, researcher of the Department of Geography, leads this study, which was commissioned by the Local Government, in order to analyze the current agricultural and livestock scenario and suggest measures for a safe future.

This work, carried out for 6 months by a multidisciplinary team and elaborated in collaboration with business owners, trade unions, representatives of the forestry sector or organic producers, results in some recommendations like administrative simplification, larger farms, recovery of 40.000 scrubland hectares for pasture or improvement of the marketing channels for products.

The project has been presented in a public event attended by the President of the Principality, Javier Fernández, the counselor for Agriculture and Livestock, María Jesús Álvarez, and the Vice-Chancellor for University Extension and Communication, Vicente Domínguez, among others.

The report points to the need of improving public services in rural areas, on the basis of regional criteria, aimed at slowing down the demographic downturn, since, as Felipe Fernández explains, "equipment cannot be an urban privilege".

As for the forestry sector, the document sets out the goal of establishing a commission within the Forestry Committee in charge of identifying and demarcating pro indiviso lands and constituting the corresponding management boards, as well as defining specific production objectives for forest crops. Moreover, the necessary improvement of competitiveness requires increasing the size of farms, which has been a difficult task due to crofting, lack of ownership titles and also lack of infrastructures.

In addition, experts recommend simplifying the excessive bureaucracy that farmers and livestock owners face, on the basis of a better coordination among administrative bodies.