The snow is stepped on. The beach is stepped on. The asphalt is stepped on. The Pyrenees are stepped on, the Costa Brava, Daurada, Domesticada, Gasificada… But the stubble is not stepped on. The bare fields. The fields that are the heads of when we were little and they used to peel us at 1. The cereal stalk standing up. We sip the cocktail of sun and earth. The smell of the stubble. Fresh, tender vanilla. And before us that golden hair like a fairytale princess. That flat expanse of red potatoes. And the man gets off the harvester with a munch-munch in his eyes. Looking at the dream of the future: bread, pasta, rice, popcorn… Food for others, food for you, for us.

We start the week the same way we spent the weekend: pending the Gavarres fire. There are still people who cannot return home.

The commemoration of the International Year of the Peasant Woman becomes, this 2026, a platform to highlight the work that thousands of women in our country have carried out in hundreds of fields, farms, wineries, mills, cooperatives and homes and which, for too long, has been relegated to the background. Women have been, along with men, key drivers of the rural world, and as the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Catalonia (FCAC) emphasizes, "they have sown, harvested, cared for animals, managed family economies, looked after families and given birth to sons and daughters, thereby keeping the territory alive and helping to build the future of our municipalities". Many times, they continue from the Federation, "they have done so, however, without recognition, without visibility and without occupying the place they deserved".

On this March 8th, I would like to remember the struggle of the Women of Unió de Pagesos to ensure that, in the rural and agricultural world, equal opportunities become a tangible reality, without gender distinction. We must continue working for equal access to all resources and services, to guarantee that our agricultural sector is accessible to all and to ensure that women are seen not as complementary figures, but as leaders at the same level as our colleagues.