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The sounds of bells and bleating fade away as migrant Osama Abdulmumen SudanThe sun setting on a centuries-old farm in the arid heartland of Spain, bringing sheep back from pasture.
From dawn to dusk, 25-year-old Abdulmumen has watched over herds of 400 animals for months in Los Cortijos, a village of 850 people on the plains of Castile-La Mancha, the region of central Spain made famous by the 17th-century classic “Don Quixote.”
Los Cortizos is one of hundreds of rural villages and towns in the region struggling with population loss, making it harder to fill a job that has existed since Biblical times, but which Spaniards rarely take up these days: shepherding.
To fill that gap and find work for recent immigrants, a government program is training incoming people like Abdulmumen – many of whom are from countries in Africa, but also Venezuela and Afghanistan – whose local farms depend on raising the animals whose milk makes central Spain’s prized sheep’s milk cheese.
“I always wanted to work in my country, but there are a lot of problems there,” Abdulmumen said in a limited speech inside his tidy, one-bedroom apartment in the city. SpanishHe said he left because of the violence but was reluctant to say anything more. “My family can’t do much right now. So I want to buy things for them. Even a house.”
fight rural migration
For Alvaro Esteban, the farm’s fifth-generation owner, the challenges of finding workers in rural Spain are personal. Esteban left Los Cortijos for eight years, first to study history at a nearby university, and then to Wales, where he worked odd jobs before returning home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I didn’t see a future here,” said Esteban, 32. “But because of life’s circumstances, I decided to come back and… coming here I said, ‘Okay, maybe there is a future here.'”
Rural migration in the interior of Spain has occurred for decades since around 1950, as generations of young people left the countryside in search of work and opportunity in the cities. Today about 81% percent of the country’s residents live in urban areas. According to the Bank of Spain, in 1950, about 60% did so.
Farmers and other agricultural workers represent less than 4% of Spain’s working population, even though the country is one of Europe’s leading agricultural producers.
After returning, Esteban took the same herding courses as Abdulmumen and looked at how he could modernize his family’s farm. He works with his 61-year-old father and Abdulmumen, using drones to monitor animals and pastures. He also makes cheese which he then sells in markets and restaurants.
Shepherd School in Toledo
New shepherds begin their training in an empty classroom just outside the fortified medieval town toledoWhere, on a recent morning, about two dozen migrants learned how to herd flocks of sheep, handle them and apply suction cups to their udders.
They are taught the basics in five days – plenty of time to introduce the basics to students who often only speak intermittent Spanish, but are eager to get to work. After one day of on-site training, and if they are authorized to work in Spain, they can apply for matching with the farm.
Sharifa Issa, a 27-year-old migrant from Ghana, said she wanted to train to work with sheep because she took care of the animals at home.
“I’m happy with animals,” Issa said.
Starting in 2022, about 460 students, most of whom are immigrants, have gone through the program, which is funded by the regional government, according to program coordinator Pedro Luna. He said, 51 graduates are now employed as herders, another 15 work in slaughterhouses, while others find jobs in olive and other fruit farms.
Many of the students are asylum seekers, like Abdulmumen, who is from the Sudanese region of Darfur. Organizations including the International Red Cross connect migrants to Luna’s program.
A Long Way to the Spanish Citadel
Like many of his peers, Abdulmumen’s journey to Spain was a simple one. At the age of 18, he left Sudan and first arrived in Egypt, where he found work in construction. Over the next four years, he moved again between Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt before finally entering Ceuta – the Spanish enclave on Morocco’s northern coast – where he applied for asylum. Eventually, they made their way to mainland Spain.
Today, Abdulmumen lives alone in Los Cortijos, where he is one of three AfricansHe said. At home he reads Spanish and watches television. On weekends, he plays soccer with people his age who come from a nearby town, but the lack of young people in the city is challenging, he said.
Abdulmumen’s day starts with Muslim prayers at five in the morning and then he goes to the fields, where he remains until after sunset. About once a month, he calls his family in Sudan, where civil war has raged since April 2023, but cell service in his village is poor. He said, one month can become two months. He last saw them seven years ago.
“That’s the only hard part,” he said, placing a small prayer mat next to him on the floor. He earns about 1,300 euros ($1,510) a month, slightly more than Spain’s minimum wage. Along with this he said that he can send some money home once every two months.
“After this, I’m looking for another job, but not right now. I like this job, it’s more quiet and also the city. I like living here in the city,” he said.
Without the help of migrants like Abdulmumen, Esteban said many livestock farms in the area – including his family’s – would be forced to close in the next five to 10 years. Very few young people want to do rural jobs. He said, even very few people are aware of it.
“There will be no one to take over most of the businesses that exist right now, because kids don’t want to follow in their parents’ footsteps,” Esteban said. “It’s a very badly affected area, very neglected.”
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AP Newspaper Bernat Armangue