Incentives for farmers

Aid to farmers will have an important place among the measures to be announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in his keynote speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair Saturday.

These measures will not have an immediate effect but will be designed to reverse the aging of the farming population.

The trend is not confined to Greece: The situation is similar in other countries, such as France, notes Apostolos Papadopoulos, professor of geography at Harokopio University.

All employees in the agricultural sector, including seasonal workers and helping family members, number about 450,000-500,000 Papadopoulos says. "They are about 10% of the economically active population," he says. But about 40% to 45% of farmers are now over 55. And many women, who used to help, without pay, of course, have left the sector, having found jobs elsewhere. At the same time,...