The general secretary of Foro Asturias and deputy of the Mixed Group in the General Board of the Principality, Adrián Pumares, warned this Saturday that "without dairy farms, no more Quesu Casín contests will be held" and proposed to promote the incorporation of young people into the dairy sector through the sale and leasing of viable farms.
Pumares, who attended the XXXVI Contest of Quesu Casín in El Campu alongside the spokesperson for FORO Asturias in the Town Hall of Caso, Emilia Calvo, lamented the disappearance of more than 70 dairy farms in Asturias and the increase in production costs, which makes it increasingly difficult for farms to be profitable. In this context, he emphasized the urgency of ensuring generational change.
In this regard, the leader of Foro proposed "to identify those economically viable farms whose owner is going to leave the activity without continuity so that, instead of allowing those farms to disappear, the regional administration can facilitate their transfer to young people."
To make this possible, he advocated for the implementation of a valuation system for these farms and specific financing instruments that allow new farmers to access them through purchase, long-term rental, or rent with an option to buy.
"The administration can facilitate loans under favorable conditions, either through regional funds or through agreements with financial entities and public guarantees," explained Pumares.
The regional deputy recalled that "Quesu Casín is one of the great quality products of Asturias, deeply linked to its territory, to farming activity, and to the conservation of our rural environment," but warned that "we cannot limit ourselves to celebrating the success of the Contest every year if, at the same time, the number of farms capable of supplying the necessary milk to produce it continues to decrease."
The person in charge of Foro Asturias also demanded a specific tax policy for those who carry out their activity in the rural environment and reiterated his party's proposal to fully subsidize the fees of rural self-employed workers in the Principality.
"Maintaining economic activity in councils like Casu requires compensating for the additional difficulties involved in starting and maintaining a business in the rural environment, so if we want to retain the population, we need living and working in these councils to be viable," he stated.
Likewise, he demanded greater support from institutions for the promotion and marketing of Quesu Casín. At the end of the contest, Pumares conveyed his congratulations to producers, ranchers, organizers, and neighbors of Casu, and emphasized that "defending Quesu Casín does not consist solely of promoting it, but in ensuring that, in ten, twenty, or thirty years, we continue to have livestock, cheese factories, and people willing to keep making it."