Raúl García Vidal, a 22-year-old from La Romana, has built PenyaFresh, a fruit and vegetable company now spanning more than 50 hectares between La Romana and Aspe. While many of his peers leave rural life behind, García Vidal is a rare exception in a sector struggling to attract young talent and secure its future.
García Vidal’s path began at 17, when he moved into his mother’s country house and planted a single hectare of peppers and eggplants. Unlike many in the region, he did not inherit a family farming business; his background was limited to a few unprofitable almond plots. The early days were grueling: he worked through the night to prepare produce for morning sales at Mercalicante and handled nearly every task himself. Those long, solitary hours laid the foundation for what would become a rapidly expanding enterprise.
Growth Through Grit
Driven more by passion than profit, García Vidal says, “I love getting on the tractor and spending 15 or 16 hours working the land.” His dedication earned him the ASAJA Alicante Young Farmer Prize for 2025, an award associated with the provincial agricultural organisation and his work in the sector.
PenyaFresh now operates on two fronts. The first covers its own crops, including vegetables and stone fruits grown for export, with watermelons among them. The second is providing agricultural services to landowners who can no longer, or no longer wish to, work their fields. This dual approach keeps the company active year-round and offers greater job stability, a rarity in a sector often defined by seasonal peaks and uncertainty.
Labor Shortages and Structural Hurdles
Despite his success, García Vidal is candid about the challenges facing Spanish agriculture. He points to two critical issues: a shrinking labor pool and a lack of professionalization. “Fewer people are willing to take on the tough realities of farm work,” he says. The trend threatens the viability of many operations across Alicante and beyond.
Public support for young entrants is one part of the response. At a 2026 agricultural event, Miguel Barrachina, the Valencian regional minister for Agriculture, Water, Livestock and Fisheries, said that 91 young people in Alicante province had received start-up agricultural aid, averaging close to €50,000 per recipient. A new application round was open at the time. The provincial figure reflects a wider effort to encourage generational renewal; it does not establish that García Vidal received the aid.
National employment indicators add another dimension. CaixaBank Research reported that affiliations in Spain’s basic sector rose 1.6% year over year between January and August 2026, after employment losses from 2022 to 2024. That national improvement does not resolve the local recruitment challenges García Vidal describes. It does show that conditions can vary by place and period, even as individual farms continue to struggle to hire.
Medium-sized businesses like PenyaFresh face additional obstacles. They shoulder heavy administrative burdens but lack the resources and market access of larger corporations. The imbalance affects everything from supply costs to hiring specialized staff. As ASAJA Alicante has highlighted, water scarcity and pests compound these pressures, while rising production costs and foreign competition squeeze profitability.
New idea and Heritage
While García Vidal’s story is one of rare upward mobility, it also echoes a wider debate about the future of Spanish agriculture. The struggle to attract young people to the land is not unique to Alicante. Across Spain, efforts to revive traditional crops and farming methods, including a recent project to restore a historic Soria tomato variety, reflect growing awareness of the need to balance innovation with heritage. The project is detailed in this report on reviving century-old tomato seeds in Palencia.
PenyaFresh shows what determination and chance can make possible. García Vidal’s experience also serves as a warning: without new generations willing to take up the challenge, Spain’s fields face an uncertain future.
