The war of the strawberry and the water in Doñana has crudely exposed the seams of an economic activity based on the exploitation of an increasingly scarce natural resource in Spain. The initiative of the Andalusian PP to regularize illegal irrigated areas around the park and the request for a boycott of its strawberry instigated by a German organization have placed agriculture in Huelva in the eye of the hurricane. But there are other hot spots in Spanish territory involved in great controversy. The pressure on them increases as the drought worsens and it becomes more evident that, with the current level of consumption and infrastructure, there is no water for everyone, be it agriculture, tourism, industry or personal leisure.
Doñana appears as the most delicate and paradigmatic case as it is an environmental icon throughout Europe, but the tendency to demand a more sustainable agriculture, with a legal and rational use of water “is increasing and will continue to grow”, considers Juan Carlos del Olmo, Secretary General of WWF/Adena, the entity that denounced the illegal extraction of water in the surroundings of the wetland, giving rise two years ago to a conviction of the Court of Justice of the EU against Spain for the overexploitation of the aquifer .
The environmental organization has been working for some time with supermarkets in Switzerland, the United Kingdom or Germany, among other countries, so that they require sustainability and legality certifications from suppliers – the two most common are those called Spring and CAAE legal use of water. Just two weeks ago they held a webinar with some thirty European distribution chains to explain the situation in Doñana and the strawberry crop. “We are against boycotts because they pay just for sinners, we want supermarkets to continue working with legal producers, and to do so with purchase protocols on the origin of the water,” points out Felipe Fuentelsaz, WWF agriculture coordinator and specialist in the strawberry sector in the Andalusian region.
From the employers’ association of the sector, Interfresa, they assure that 90% of the producers in the area that export to Germany have these certifications because the supermarkets of that country demand it. Counting the global number of producers, both those who sell abroad and those who do not, the percentage drops, add sources from the sector. The controversy centers on non-regularized crops, between 1,500 and 2,000 hectares – there are no exact figures and they vary depending on the sources –, dedicated mainly to red fruits. In other words, around 15% of the production area – in the Doñana area there are another 13,000 legal hectares. Now, it’s not all black and white here. Part of the farmers combine crops on legal and illegal land and there are also businessmen who, despite concentrating their production in a regulated area, may have obtained water from prohibited wells, living with those who produce all their fruit in strict compliance with the regulations, both in regarding land and water resources. The casuistry is diverse and does not allow for simplifications.
Environmental organizations are putting pressure on European distribution because between 80% and 90% of all the red fruit production in Huelva – some 270,000 tons – is exported. As for the agricultural associations, they all defend the need to supply the sector with sufficient water and thus maintain the level of activity. They adduce the economic impact that it has on a province with an unemployment rate of 18.07%, according to the latest EPA, almost five points above the national average (13.26%).
Huelva’s red berries contribute more than 500 million euros in production value and account for 11.3% of the province’s GDP, points out Andres Góngora, COAG’s head of fruit and vegetables. From a subsistence agriculture based on cereals and olive trees, Huelva switched to strawberry production in the 1980s, a crop that came from California. The climatic conditions and the availability of water triggered the production of a very profitable fruit. It was called the red gold. But the rapid increase in crops, coupled with the climate crisis, has put activity on the ropes. The electoral struggle of 23-J has done the rest.
Among the arguments in favor of maintaining the production rate in Huelva, Interfresa underlines the jobs it generates. This campaign has led to 100,000 seasonal contracts. Of these, some 52,000 are local workers and the rest, up to 85% of the total, come from EU countries, mainly from Eastern Europe, they explain from agricultural unions. Offers through the public employment service are never 100% covered and companies have to resort every year to hiring at source in non-EU countries, basically women from Morocco –see graph–. This season, more than 14,000 temporary workers from the African country have arrived and edges appear here as well. As with water use, the strawberry job market is peppered with controversy despite progress.
Àngels Escrivà , a sociologist at the University of Huelva and an activist with the organization Mujeres Huelva 24 horas, which works in a network with the association Mujeres day laboreras en lucha, recounts a series of “non-compliances†with seasonal workers. For years they have been monitoring working conditions on the ground and have detected that part of them “does not receive the salary stipulated in the collective agreement”, of 55.19 euros gross per six-hour day. “In many cases the employer reduces them between two and five euros a day to pay the costs of supplies – water, electricity, gas – of the accommodation, when the law says that they have to pay for it themselves.” “The application of the law fails,” she adds, “more controls are needed and conditions improve beyond salary.” The farmers deny these accusations.
Labor issues, however, have taken a backseat given the unprecedented battle for water. Góngora, from COAG, defends that the resource can be guaranteed and Doñana protected at the same time if alternative sources to the aquifer are sought, among which the transfer of the Guadiana promised in 2018 stands out, as well as the increase in reclaimed water and water from desalination plants . This is the same formula that is proposed by the Platform in Defense of County Irrigation, favorable to the initiative of the Junta de AndalucÃa. “We demand the recognition of some 800 hectares of historical crops that were left out of the previous irrigation plan” and are now considered irregular, says Julio DÃaz, spokesman for the entity. From the Puerta de Doñana Farmers Association, in Almonte, which brings together legal irrigators, they insist that even then there would not be enough water for everyone. “The transfer has to be fulfilled but it is not infinite; there would be some 13 cubic hectometres left to be distributed and that does not cover the entire area that is already regularized, even though everyone applies techniques that reduce water consumption as much as possibleâ€, warns Manuel Delgado, representative of the organization. The confrontation between both camps of farmers is increasing and has reached high-risk levels, inflicting a deep social wound on the community, they admit. They are the other derivatives of the war of the strawberry and the water.
Both do agree that the reputational damage arising from the controversy is enormous and its consequences remain to be seen. Different agricultural organizations consulted also fear that public scrutiny will reach other types of crops that have grown exponentially in recent years, such as avocados or mangoes from AxarquÃa (Málaga), where the Civil Guard is investigating some thirty farmers for, presumably stealing water to irrigate these subtropical fruits. Also about corn or alfalfa from Lleida, about which scientists and agronomists have been drawing attention for some time due to their high demand for water and because they are imported crops. Economic activity will have to adapt – they stress – to the new climatic reality.
