Dear readers, I truly wish a fantastic week of July for all of you, particularly to all the rural farmers in the world, who dedicate their days (and nights) to produce all the food that we normally eat at home. None of us truly know all the hassles that farmers go through every year, to make their businesses profitable, under harsh climate and economic conditions. In Europe, rural farmlands are at risk of extinction because of several factors. Mainly we are facing a Europe that is not populating its rural lands as it should. Migrations of the youth from rural or intermediate lands to urban cities have not stopped since the end of WWII; and, Europe is getting old.

Several drivers kindle farm abandonment in the new generations. Mainly, young people migrate to urban cities (1) to look for better economic opportunities; (2) to obtain a better academic education; (3) to find an ample range of potential employment with higher salaries; (4) for personal reasons; and (5) to pursue an erroneous idea that the urban lifestyle is more promising and satisfactory than the rural way of life.

The European Union (EU) has been investing millions of dollars in its territorial research. Since its origins in Maastricht (1993), the EU has given a privileged priority to understanding its territory, in every single aspect that you can imagine. The EUROSTAT is the bureau designed to provide data statistics of the most relevant variables for each of the EU nations´ members, and we have utilized their information to compile the following set of slides. Our publication of today is the frame of reference that will help you to design the Customer Value Proposition that is required by our entrepreneurs of today.

The entrepreneurs’ integral squad has contacted us to help them with a double purpose CVP: To resuscitate the abandoned rural villages of Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal through a microfinance solution for the new settlers of these countryside communities. Most of these European rural towns are called ghost places. Over the years, the ghost towns’ populations and youth have migrated to the cities. During the last 50 years, the elder citizens who remained, passed away, leaving no one to replace them in charge of their economies. Nowadays, most of these villages are almost desertic, with low-density populations of less than 12.5 people per km2.

The entrepreneurs are motivated to create pilot revival projects in 4 ghost towns of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France. They wish to know how to attract young inhabitants to become the new farmer residents of these abandoned lands, help them to produce enough to construct a middle-class citizen living, and repopulate these regions. In addition, our entrepreneurs wish to offer a microcredit solution (unique on its own), that might help the young farmers with working capital requirements and house-farm renovation infrastructure. The microfinance solution will have several advantages such as extended grace periods, super low interest rates (200 bps to 300 bps below the commercial bank rates for the agriculture sector), no land collateral attached to the loans, but collateral substitutes typical of microfinance, which are convened all together with the community of farmers of the village. In addition, the entrepreneurs wish to help Ukrainian growers (in the condition of refugees) who were involved in agricultural farming in Ukraine. The entrepreneurs’ idea is to help them be owners of their own land outside Ukraine, “only” if they decide to reside in the EU-27. The project is very enterprising, and it also complies with the United Nations Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) number 8 and 10.

Visit the set of slides that have been prepared for you today. It has all the information required for your brain workout. We expect these slides to trigger in you to do more research on your own with the bibliography (slides 36-39). The templates for elaboration of the CVPs have been shared previously for other cases, so we recommend you download them and prepare your two CVPs linked to this case. Your homework is to do them over the weekend, and I will come back on Monday to upload the solution. Feel free to download, share, and print the material below.

Announcement.
With this episode 19, we are running the last sprint of this saga. Episode 20 (the solution to this case) will be posted on Monday. We are only one example ahead of completing this fantastic epic. Then we will provide all the strategic reflections, case by case. Remember, on Mondays, I upload the solution to every case, and next Friday, we will proceed with Episode 21, which will be the first section of our next product: an agricultural project to introduce a new product in Central America.

Musical Section.
This saga is about improvement, amelioration, upgrading, and the advancement required in the theory and practice of value propositions. Value propositions are the first step in our business modeling frameworks. If the value proposition is improper, then our business model is mistaken.

Aujourd´hui we wish to share a lovely French lavanda compilation of music for studying, reading, or enjoying the magnificence of life. It has been uploaded by Halidon Music. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading http://www.eleonoraescalantestrategy.com. Blessings see you on our next episode.

Sources of reference and Bibliography utilized today. All are written in slides 36 to 39. When we will wrap up this case, we will add additional references.

Disclaimer: Eleonora Escalante paints Illustrations in Watercolor. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Nevertheless, most of this blog’s pictures, images, or videos are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images unless otherwise stated.