According to the D. O. Arròs de Valencia, rice cultivation in the Valencian Community is the oldest in the peninsula, dating back more than 1,200 years. Rice fields located both in Alicante and in Valencia and Castellón, although 90% of its cultivation is concentrated in the Albufera Natural Park, a wetland of great importance due to its biodiversity.
Despite the differences between environmentalists and farmers, which there are, rice is the greatest guarantor of the subsistence of this fragile ecosystem, and whether they like it or not, they are condemned to work as a team. Here it happens as in the rest of natural spaces, each one defends what is theirs with a fairly limited capacity for dialogue, therefore, the result unfortunately is not the desired one. do we advance? No, we are stuck feeling the breath on the back of our necks from an enemy as powerful as climate change. Therefore, tie up the males.
This year we are facing an unusual harvest due to how late it will be. It is a drawer, if it was planted a month later than expected due to the intense spring rains that made it impossible to work the land, it will have to be mowed a month later. The farmers expressed their concern to me: “Hopefully, the machines will enter the fields with the pump after the first fortnight of September, then the rest of the varieties will come, Albufera and J. Sendra, which is the latest.” There is more uncertainty than ever because approximately half of the rice planted in the Albufera Natural Park belongs to the J. Sendra variety. Why? Basically for two reasons: It is the most productive variety per hectare and the one that least falls due to its short stem.
The harvesting machines will not work in the fields of this variety until after October 9, something that not even the oldest of the place remember. In the Guadalquivir and the Ebro Delta, which also have to put up with their own, there is talk of forecasts of a 30% drop in production. Here, in our house it will depend on the weather.
With the usual atmospheric instability of autumn, with its DANAS, floods and hail, the harvest is in the air. They will have to resort to the famous proverb of patience: “With time and a cane” and trust in the lignin of the J. Sendra stem, capable of holding up the weight of the spike despite inclement weather. Something will be saved, they say. If the IVIA did not exist, with its powerful agronomic research, I do not know where the Valencian rice culture would be, and therefore, all this
Unfortunately, this is going to get worse, and I’m not saying this, it’s the coastal regression models, in our case due to factors as diverse as the decrease in river sediments, the interruption of coastal dynamics due to the construction of port infrastructures, saline intrusion and sea level rise.
The main risk we face is the simultaneous concurrence of extreme wave and meteorological tidal events, linked to severe river discharges and the rise in sea level. It is the perfect storm that little by little will lead to the disappearance of the coastline that gave rise to La Albufera. The situation is clearly seen in different models generated by artificial intelligence, where it is observed that in the year 2050 La Albufera will be history, with its restinga destroyed and invaded by the sea. I can’t and don’t want to imagine that scenario, hopefully I won’t be around to see it.
In our highly urbanized coastline, the combination of these events is going to lead to severe economic consequences for which we are not physically or mentally prepared.
Today I wanted to write about bous al carrer, but this goring hurts more.
