Spain's idle farmland,back at work.
Spain has more than a million hectares of cropland that nobody farms. Most of it sits in small inherited plots that never reach a listing. Yermia finds that land, verifies it, assembles it into lots a farmer can work, and manages it for the owners.
Land that nobody lists
The typical owner of an abandoned plot is an heir who lives in a city, often abroad. Many descend from the Spanish emigration to France and Switzerland. For them the plot is a list of duties: fire clearance, pest control and taxes that fall due whether or not the land produces anything.
Land portals publish plots that owners have already decided to offer. This land never gets that far. It stays idle, year after year, while farmers and cooperatives nearby look for area they can work.
The most destructive fire season in the EU since the EFFIS series began in 2006. Idle land builds up fuel.
Regional aid for citrus growers hit by cotonet. Abandoned groves act as reservoirs for the pest.
The age of about half of all holders in the Comunitat Valenciana, on holdings that average under six hectares.
Farmland flooded in the region in 2024, with losses near €1,379 million. Many owners now face a decision about their land.
Five steps, one operator
Yermia generates supply from land that no listing reaches, then runs the whole relationship. Each step has its own module on one shared parcel register.
Public records and satellite imagery flag idle parcels at the desk, before anyone drives out. The Catastro gives geometry, SIGPAC the registered land use, and Copernicus Sentinel-2 what is actually growing.
A title search and a field visit confirm every parcel before any contract. Each visit ends in one of three outcomes, confirmed, rejected or title blocked, and the outcome feeds back into the screen.
Adjacent parcels become lots a farmer can work. Each lot carries spare parcels in reserve, so one stalled inheritance does not stop the lot.
The owner picks one of three contracts, from a single season to a five-year lease, and moves up only when the relationship has earned it.
Yermia keeps the plot in order, handles the duties attached to it, moves the payments and reports to both sides. The owner deals with one counterpart.
See the platform at work
This is a working preview of the first version, which we build in the final quarter of 2026. Run the desk screen over a sector, open a Plot Passport, send a parcel to the field, then block a title and watch the lot hold.
MODULES
Records, names and plots in this preview are illustrative. Totals on the Operations screen follow the company's financial model, Base case.
Desk screen
Sector 3–4 · 1.2 × 0.7 km · latest Sentinel-2 imagery
Every field visit returns a structured outcome. The outcomes correct the screen, region by region and crop by crop.
Lot L-012
Sector 3 · assembled from adjacent verified parcels
The agricultural engineer who leads field operations signs off each assembled lot before it is offered to a farmer or cooperative.
Operations
Pilot comarca · month 11 of the first operating year
| Parcel | Signal | Rank | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|
| YP-0417 | Crop registered, idle | High | Tue |
| YP-0422 | Crop registered, idle | High | Tue |
| YP-0388 | Scrub registered, idle | Medium | Wed |
| YP-0510 | Records disagree | Inspect | Thu |
| YP-0391 | Scrub registered, idle | Medium | Fri |
| Holding | Obligation | Due |
|---|---|---|
| H-0007 | Pest control | 22 Nov |
| H-0012 | Condition report | 30 Nov |
| H-0019 | Pest control | 6 Dec |
| H-0026 | Condition report | 31 Dec |
| H-0038 | Clearance plan | 15 Jan |
Preview of the interface. Parcel records, owners and outcomes are illustrative. The screening method shown here is the subject of Spanish patent application P202631254.
Parcel geometry, cadastral reference and rural attributes.
OPEN DATARegistered agricultural land use for every enclosure.
OPEN DATAMultispectral imagery at 10 m, with a revisit of about five days.
OPEN DATARegistered title position, requested case by case during verification.
ON VERIFICATIONA ladder of commitment
Spanish rural lease law sets a five-year minimum term. It protects farmers, and it is also the main reason owners hesitate. Yermia lets the owner start with one season and climb only when the relationship has proved itself.
Legal basis: Ley 49/2003 on rural leases, as amended by Ley 26/2005.9 Spanish agrarian-law counsel reviews the full architecture in the validation quarter, before the pilot opens.
Each side pays for what it lacks
The owner cannot find a trustworthy farmer for a plot they never visit. The farmer cannot assemble usable area out of other people's inheritances. Yermia does both jobs at once.
Relief from a liability
For an heir far away, an inherited grove brings notices, deadlines and fines. Yermia keeps the land in order and handles the duties, in French, Spanish or English.
- Fire clearance and pest control handled on schedule
- Condition watched from satellite imagery and on the ground
- A quarterly report with photographs and documents
Land that is ready to farm
Young farmers arrive with installation aid and no workable parcel. Growers and cooperatives need contiguous area. An assembled lot with clean titles answers both.
- Titles verified before the lot is offered
- Small plots joined into one workable block
- Access tracks, fencing and water points restored
Cooperatives Agro-alimentàries de la Comunitat Valenciana, Informe Socioeconómico 2024.7 A one-off commission on signed five-year leases is the third revenue line.
Sized from documented rents
Every level is the idle land multiplied by the rent it would earn. The Ministry of Agriculture puts the national average canon at €166.8 per hectare in 2024, and citrus at €1,352.9.8
Values are latent annual rental value and describe the size of each market. Yermia earns a share of the value it mobilises, through the owner subscription, the farmer premium and lease commission.
Hectares under management, pilot comarca
One comarca first, then the next
Validation and build
Agrarian-law opinion, owner and farmer interviews, letters of intent, and the first working version of the Plot Passport.
Pilot launch
Custody subscriptions and seasonal contracts on clean-title plots in one Valencian comarca.
First assembled lots
Title work on complex parcels completes and the first lots enter cultivation.
About 1,000 ha
The pilot target, with 16 direct roles, most of them rural field and agronomy posts.
Expansion
The model repeats comarca by comarca, then region by region.
Built in house, protected on four fronts
The platform reconciles three public sources that disagree with each other and with the ground, and returns one decision per parcel. It learns from every field visit, and it builds each lot with spare title cover. Our CTO leads the build in house, and the code stays the company's own asset.
The screening method that decides whether a parcel is worked.
The parcel register, under Directive 96/9/EC. It grows with every verified parcel.
Platform code written in house, under Directive 2009/24/EC.
Calibration parameters and ranking weights, kept confidential.
What a returned hectare does
Yermia earns by delivering the outcome public policy is already trying to fund, and it does so at private expense and private risk.
Less fire fuel
Every hectare back in cultivation removes fuel from the landscape without a euro of firefighting budget.
Fewer pest reservoirs
Managed groves stop harbouring cotonet next to working citrus orchards.
Rural jobs
Up to 11 rural field and agronomy posts in the pilot region by 2029, plus the contractor work placed with cooperatives.
Living countryside
Land back in production keeps activity in rural Spain and adds to domestic food supply.
Four founders, four functions
Each co-founder holds a C-level role and owns one function the model cannot run without. As a neutral facilitator without local family ties, the team can hold the confidence of an absent heir and a local farmer at the same time.
Dike Hyacinth Okpara
General management and relations with administrations, notaries and cooperatives. Eighteen years in senior governance and executive roles.
Djaaroun Khalil Lakhdar
Owns the Plot Passport and the lot-assembly engine. Nine years building geospatial data products, including work with the Spanish Catastro's web services.
Nwobi Chioma Obieze
Finance, unit economics and the valuation depth behind verification. Chartered accountant and tax fellow, trained as an estate surveyor and valuer. Thirty-four years in the field.
Mourad Larbi
Cooperatives, partnerships and owners abroad, in France and French-speaking Switzerland. Twenty-five years running cross-border businesses.
Idle land, or looking for land?
Write to us if you own an idle plot in the Comunitat Valenciana, farm nearby, or advise families on inheritance.
