The board of the National Agricultural Society (SNA) elected, with a high turnout, its new board of directors who It will be chaired for the period 2023-2025 by Antonio Walker Prieto, who will replace Cristián Allendes Marín. Walker has extensive experience as an industry leader. A prominent fruit grower from Maule, through agricultural Wapri, he has been president of Fruséptica at the regional level and of Fedefruta at the national level. In addition, in the political sector, he was Minister of Agriculture in the second government of President Sebastián Piñera, and was a candidate in his region for the Constitutional Convention. In recent times, he had been seen active in personally communicating to the public the way in which agricultural activity is carried out, through educational videos from his farms through social networks and a radio program broadcast on a station in Curicó.

How to Live Aligned with first vice president was elected José Miguel Stegmeier Schmidlin, who has extensive experience as an advisor to the SNA and as a leader of farmers in Biobío and the south; and how second vice president, Carolina Cruz Vargas, agronomist and prominent table grape consultant, who becomes the second woman to hold such a high management position in the union.

The rest of the table was made up of Aurelio Montes Baseden, María Inés Figari Barrera, Gastón Caminondo Vidal, Recaredo Ossa Balmaceda, Ricardo Ariztía Tagle and Juan Carlos Prieto Reyes.

Meanwhile, the union directors will be the representatives of Fedefruta, Jorge Valenzuela Trebilcock; from Sago, Sergio Willer Daniel; from Wines of Chile, Mario Pablo Silva Silva, and from Fedeleche, Marcos Winkler Mayer.

Antonio Walker expressed satisfaction regarding how the SNA board of directors and council were formed for this new period. “We see a historic increase in women and young people, which makes us happy, because we know that their look will be a contribution to the work of the union. We must continue to promote this integration”.

Work axes

In the opportunity, the new president of the SNA stated that his work focus will be on bringing development opportunities closer to the rural world; promote associations for small agriculture; push sustainability to be part of the solution to the climate crisis; promote food security for Chile and the world; help strengthen international relations to promote foreign trade, and ensure the guarantees that the sector requires to continue growing.

Regarding the latter, he deepened the need to recover security in all regions of the country, emphasizing the union's concern about the increase in violence.

Along with highlighting the opportunities offered by the sector in terms of employment, both for Chileans and foreigners, the new president of the SNA emphasized the contribution of agriculture to reactivate the national economy.

Along the same lines, he pointed to the urgency of making improvements to immigration policy: “You come to Chile to work with a work visa and not to commit crimes. In agriculture, we value the contribution that foreigners make in labor matters, but we need to reorder this issue, ”he said.