COMUNICACIÓN

The 4^th Course on Agrarian and Livestock Law Establishes Itself as a Multidisciplinary Encounter to Address the Challenges of the Primary Sector (11/3/2026)

Around seventy judges and magistrates, legal scholars, notaries and registrars from across Spain will gather on 11 and 12 March at the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe to participate in the 4^th Course on Agrarian and Livestock Law, held under the agreement signed between the General Council of the Judiciary and Yuste Foundation.

At the course inauguration, the secretary-general for Equality and Work–Life Balance of the Regional Government of Extremadura, María del Ara Sánchez, took part, stating that these sessions “have become a space for dialogue and reflection between the legal world and the primary sector”. In this regard, she highlighted the countryside as a fundamental economic activity and a way of life that “shapes the identity of our communities and plays a key role in the social and environmental balance of rural areas”.

For María del Ara Sánchez, agricultural and livestock law ensures legal certainty, sustainability, and development in rural areas, adding that thanks to its constant evolution, it allows challenges to be addressed in a cross-cutting manner, such as “the situation of women in these traditionally male-dominated rural sectors”.

In Spain, nearly 29% of farms are managed by women, a figure that has remained stable in recent years, “confirming a sustained trend with considerable potential for growth”, the secretary-general stated. In Extremadura, this evolution is particularly evident in education, as in the four Rural Training Centres, 30.24% of enrolled students are women (114 female students out of a total of 377).

To conclude, María del Ara Sánchez acknowledged that Extremadura’s agricultural sector is moving towards a more diverse model, in which women play a more prominent role, “taking firm steps to embark on ventures in the sector”.

The inaugural event also featured a speech by Inés Herreros, territorial representative of the General Council of the Judiciary, who noted that this course encourages the analysis and debate of innovative and controversial issues specific to the territorial context in which it is held. In this regard, she emphasised the rural world and respect for the environment “as the only way to ensure the sustainable well-being of future generations”.

The guardian and custodian of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe, friar Vidal Rodríguez López, stated that the course addresses the necessity of law as “the network that binds laws and duties in safeguarding creation, shaping societies, and humanising individuals”.

To close the inaugural session, the president of the High Court of Justice of Extremadura, María Félix Tena Aragón, spoke very positively of the “institutional loyalty” of the gathering, which brings together a range of professional and social institutions, including notaries, registrars, and legal advisers of the Regional Government of Extremadura, among others. In this context, Tena Aragón emphasised, “In Extremadura we are few, and if we do not work together, we will achieve nothing”.

Tena Aragón took the opportunity to announce that one of the topics to be addressed in the next edition will be the challenge of energy and the transformation of rural areas.

The course, part of the national training plan of the General Council of the Judiciary, examines agricultural and livestock law from Ibero-American, European, and regional perspectives. Among the speakers are the vice president of the Supreme Court and judge of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber, Dimitry Berberoff Ayuda; the chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Ana Peláez Narváez; the Chilean doctor of law Francisca María Barrientos Camus; and the deputy director-general at the European Union’s Directorate-General for Agriculture, Diego Canga Fano.

This year, following the devastating wildfires that swept through Extremadura last summer, destroying over 50,000 hectares, a roundtable has been included to discuss the legal implications of such disasters, featuring David Jorge Vegas, head of service at Infoex. The course will also examine the situation of people with disabilities in rural areas, with particular focus on women. In addition, attention will be given to the challenges posed by innovation in food engineering and the distribution of agricultural and livestock products, with a session including Matilde García Duarte, president of the National Association of Large Distribution Companies.

The legal implications of bullfighting will also be debated in a roundtable featuring José Luque Teruel, president of the Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla (Royal Cavalry Armory of Seville) and magistrate, and livestock breeder Victorino Martín, moderated by CGPJ member José Antonio Montero Fernández.

The course is co-directed by Rafael Estévez Benito, president of the Court of First Instance of Cáceres, and Juan Carlos Moreno Piñero, director of Yuste Foundation. It also has the support of the Notarial Association of Extremadura and the College of Property, Commercial, and Movable Property Registrars of Spain.