Sagunto council approves 9 September as official Agriculture Day
Sagunto's city council has unanimously approved marking 9 September as the municipal Agriculture Day, to recognise local farmers, encourage generational renewal and promote the consumption of local produce.
Sagunto City Council's ordinary August plenary session has approved, with the backing of every political group, an institutional declaration that sets 9 September as the municipal Agriculture Day (Día Municipal de la Agricultura). The date coincides with World Agriculture Day and aims to highlight the farming sector's contribution to the town's economy, society and environment, in a year marked by Sagunto's industrial shift toward clean energy and electric vehicles.
The declaration tasks the Concejalía de Agricultura (the council's Agriculture Department) with designing a programme of educational and participatory activities each year, within its available budget, to bring farming closer to residents and recognise the people who work the land. Among the goals set out in the agreement are raising the sector's visibility, encouraging generational renewal -one of the biggest challenges facing farming across the Valencian region, where fewer young people are taking up agriculture- and boosting demand for local produce. The agreement does not set out specific activities for this first edition, but it does require the council to present a dedicated programme every year around the date.
The text approved by the plenary session puts particular emphasis on citrus farming as one of the pillars of agriculture in Sagunto and across the wider Camp de Morvedre district. That citrus tradition has historical roots: in the early 20th century, a phylloxera outbreak destroyed much of Sagunto's vineyards, and the shift from dry farming to irrigation led growers to replace vines with citrus trees, which have dominated the municipality's irrigated farmland ever since. Today, local agriculture combines that irrigated land -led by orange trees and other fruit trees- with dry-farmed crops such as carob and olive trees, plus the vines and almond trees still grown in some areas.
The declaration's explanatory statement notes that agriculture has historically been one of Sagunto's strategic sectors, helping to shape its landscape, economy, culture and social fabric. The agreement also acknowledges that the sector faces challenges such as market volatility, while pointing to opportunities linked to new crop varieties, digitalisation, precision farming, certified sustainability and boosting the value of locally branded produce.
With this declaration, Sagunto joins other towns that have dedicated a day to recognising their primary sector, at a time when generational renewal and the profitability of farms are a concern across much of Camp de Morvedre. The first Agriculture Day will be held on 9 September 2026.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional background from Wikipedia on Sagunto's agricultural history.