Livestock farmer Laura Martínez, 31, has attended the protest demonstrations with her rural colleagues because she shares many of the demands, but not those that seek to relax the environmental measures that affect farms. “It makes no sense to talk about removing the 2030 Agenda [acuerdo de Naciones Unidas sobre desarrollo sostenible] or not reducing the use of pesticides. We depend on the ecosystem and if we destroy it I don't know what we are going to live on,” he maintains. With it, other farmers consider it a mistake to blame the problems faced by the sector on the environmental requirements imposed by Europe to access aid from the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). Or blame the Green Deal, the EU strategy to achieve climate neutrality in 2050, which was planned to be applied in the future and which sought to reduce the use of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides by half… a point that has been stopped . Another issue, they warn, is the way in which Brussels intends to implement these requirements, which can lead to the disappearance of small farms due to their inability to adapt to the changes.
Antonio Feliu, a 55-year-old Majorcan farmer, has also been seen at protest rallies, “because rural people live poorly” and because of the unfair competition and excessive bureaucracy they face. But, at the same time, he defends that the way forward is sustainable agriculture, which he practices on his agricultural farm, made up of several farms that add up to a total of 100 hectares – the average size of a farm in Spain is around 44 hectares. , indicates the Ministry of Agriculture. In them he grows organic fruit trees and raises cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens and rabbits, which he sells to individuals, cooperatives, restaurants or wholesalers. Feliu's is one of the 914,871 agricultural holdings that existed in Spain in 2020, 7.6% less than the 2009 census, of which around 650,000 receive economic benefits from the CAP, indicates the last agrarian census published two years ago.
Feliu likes “to have the field well cultivated, without dirt or herbicides. “I don't want to contaminate the water we are going to drink, or the plant that we later sell, it is not my philosophy of life.” With this path marked, he assures that “the environmental measures of the CAP cannot be softened because they are insufficient.” Although he immediately emphasizes: “They say that the CAP is sustainable and that is not entirely true because they are betting on landowners and intensive production.”
But the pressure from the tractor units is having an effect and Europe is giving ground on the green agenda. Brussels is studying making 4 of the 10 practices included in the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (BCAM) voluntary, essential to receive CAP aid, which affect crop rotation, soil maintenance or the surface area should be left fallow. “Almost 55% of the farms would be exempt from this conditionality,” said the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, after the last meeting on Wednesday with the main organizations in the sector.
Silence with green resignations
“The main problem is free trade agreements and unfair competition from other external products, but these protests should not be silenced by repealing the minimum existing environmental standards,” explains Helena Moreno, head of agriculture at Greenpeace. A step backwards that is also denounced by the Por Otra PAC coalition, made up of ranchers, farmers and environmental NGOs, among others. “If this continues, the greenest CAP in history [por la actual de 2023 a 2027] “It will not even meet the obligations of 2014,” they maintain. At that time, the maintenance of permanent pastures, the diversification of crops, the promotion of spaces to protect soils and the preservation of wildlife that pollinate and kill pests were contemplated.
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Environmental concern is not the exclusive heritage of farmers who grow organically. This is the case of Santiago Pérez, 52 years old, who exploits 60 hectares in Campo de Cartagena (Murcia) in which he produces two crops – lettuce and potatoes -, which the legislation allows there. “Today we are suffering the consequences of bad agricultural practices because a lot of nitrogen has been put into the soil,” he says, based on what his experience has taught him. In the case of this area, the consequences have become visible in the Mar Menor, which has lost its balance and has suffered two crises with thousands of dead fish due, mainly, to the accumulation of nitrates used as fertilizers.
Using phytosanitary minimums “is the best for managing the product and selling quality,” says the farmer, who exports part of his production. About 15 days before harvesting, Pérez does not apply chemical substances, which prevents traces of them from being present. He also keeps almost half of his land fallow in order to reclaim the land. Restoring the soil is one of the measures that the PAC considered mandatory and that it has reduced. Farmers now only have to keep 4% of their agricultural area without production, instead of the previous 7%.
Pérez is used to the bureaucratic burden, one of the aspects most criticized by farmers, who ask Europe for administrative simplification. He does not request the CAP, but presents a control report to the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) and another to the autonomous community. In them he indicates the amount of water used, the crops grown, the fertilizer applied… “They are practically the same, we are duplicating roles,” he warns. In addition, he has a digital book where his clients can check the traceability of “the lettuce they just received.” Pérez understands that for a small farm there is too much paperwork.
Rejection of the digital notebook
In this sense, Europe proposed the establishment of a digital notebook, in which farms had to record, among others, phytosanitary applications, fertilization or irrigation. Its entry into force will be gradual, but even so it continues to raise numerous protests, especially due to the difficulties that elderly people or small farms may encounter, and due to problems with Internet access. In the heterogeneous agricultural scenario, 41% of farm owners are 65 years old or older, 55% are between 35 and 64 years old and only 4% are under 35.
With a complicated generational change and a structure in which small businesses abound, “there is a problem of rhythms and support for farmers, who have to be offered a way to carry out this transition. The big ones don't have problems,” says Tomás García Azcárate, PhD in agricultural engineering from the CSIC and specialist in the CAP and agricultural markets. “Because,” he continues, “the vast majority of people do not doubt the need to mitigate climate change and it is necessary to face modifications.”
Santiago Rodríguez, a 31-year-old agroecological producer from Ourense, is not opposed to control, but agrees that “it should be the Administration that grants facilities and aid.” He gets off the tractor with which he was preparing the planting to pick up the phone and explain his situation. “Before, it was normal to undertake these tasks within a month and a half, but if we want there to be moisture in the land, we have to get ahead of time,” he describes. There are seasons in which they have lost 80% of potato production due to the summer drought and other products due to floods.
It even affects its gastronomic characteristics: “Galicia is the birthplace of turnip greens and turnip greens and there were almost none of them,” he says. If we add to this that wild boars breed all year round and there are always flies and mosquitoes, it is difficult to understand the flexibility of environmental measures by the EU. “Almost all the problems we have in the countryside are due to climate change,” she says. However, she understands other demands from farmers, including the request for help for agricultural diesel.
Laura Martínez, a veterinarian turned livestock and cheese farmer, points to the attempt to politicize the protests, which she attended in Madrid to demand measures against unfair competition and excessive bureaucracy, among other demands. “They are taken advantage of by large companies and unions,” she maintains. She does not know any rancher who criticizes the 2030 Agenda, as was shouted at some of the rallies, and believes that “green measures should not be optional, but mandatory, but taking into account the casuistry of extensive livestock farming.”
He thinks about it and puts it into practice on his farm in Bustarviejo, in the northern mountains of Madrid, where he has a herd of about 180 goats, 160 free-range laying hens, 60 suckler cows and a cheese factory. Try to take advantage of the natural resources, grasses, bushes and water around you: “The more you depend on external feed and forage, the more difficult it will be to be profitable, the more pollution there will be and, consequently, less well-being.” His animals create the landscape, clean the forest and reduce the carbon footprint. “We are sustainable, both environmentally and socially,” he says. Precisely what the EU is looking for on the path towards greener agriculture.
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