If the rain doesn’t fix it, this is on track to be the worst rice campaign for Josep Pericay, who has been growing this cereal in Baix Ter for more than 30 years, which requires moist lands and abundant water to grow. The numbers he anticipates point to total disaster. “If everything continues the same and they don’t guarantee us irrigation, we won’t even be able to sow, if we sow, it would be real suicide,” explains the rice farmer, who chairs the Plant Protection Association (ADV) of the Pals rice field. which brings together 25 producers who market this food under the Arròs de Pals brand.
He doesn’t talk for the sake of talking. He recognizes that no one will dare to plant a seed if they do not have a guaranteed water resource, which does not happen today. “If someone sows a hectare of rice, it costs around 3,000 euros, including the seed, phytosanitary products, the rent of the land, the means to irrigate…” he says.
Pericay leases 180 hectares of land for the cultivation of rice between the municipalities of Torroella de Montgrí, Pals, Palau-s ator, Fontanilles, Bellcaire d’Empordà and Castelló d’Empúries. The ADV totals around 1,100 hectares, the cultivated area of ??which was already considerably reduced last campaign due to the lack of precipitation.
In the fields on the left bank of the Ter river, the reduction was 70%, and on the right, 30%. This translated into about 1,500 tons less rice compared to other, more fruitful campaigns, with more than 6,500 tons harvested. A product that 50% stays in the territory and the other half is sold to rice companies in the Ebro delta, an area that concentrates 95% of Catalonia’s rice cultivation. Pericay warns that an uncultivated field, even for just one year, can be the first step towards the progressive abandonment of the land. “And if the land is abandoned, it won’t take long for the speculators to arrive. We can’t afford it, if the rice campaign is missed for one year, it will be very difficult to get back together”, says the rice farmer, who emphasizes that many families and businesses live from this crop, which in the Baix Ter there is evidence which has been practiced since the 15th century. There are five rice industries in the area.
This farmer explains that today the fields are dry and that the recent rains have barely served to save the winter cereal and the fruit trees and alleviate “a little” the environmental drought. “Now we have a Government in office that will not make decisions, and we can forget about the promises made in Parliament, such as a basic agricultural income or an aid of 200 euros per hectare in irrigated areas where it is not possible to irrigate” , he laments.
The campaign is in the process of becoming historic: losses would reach 100%. For now, the only hope the rice farmers have is to look to the sky. In 2008, with the last great drought, a miracle took place in extremis and it was possible to save a harvest that was expected to be ruined, like the current one.
Time plays against it. The fields are currently in winter rest. Sowing will begin at the end of April and can be extended until May 15, if farmers dare to sow. About 35 or 40 days later the land would be flooded, for a period that lasts about a hundred days. The harvest will begin at the end of September and, just like sowing, the rice fields in this area have been dry for some time.
“We were pioneers in 2015 in adopting dry sowing in Spain and with this system we save 35% of water”, explains Pericay, very critical of the governments that have allowed the lack of water to become a serious problem for many economic sectors such as agriculture, livestock or tourism. “There is a climatic drought, but also a political one”, criticizes Pericay, who regrets that all those solutions that emerged in 2008, with the last major water crisis, such as the connection of Barcelona to the Ebro water network , have not been executed. “There is still no hydraulic balance in Catalonia; it is inconceivable that today there was no interconnection of basins. It is the basis, not only for agriculture, but also for tourism. If this is not the case, there will soon be nothing left of all this in the easternmost Catalonia”, he laments. He also denounces what he considers a “spoliation” of the Ter river. According to data from the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), the volume of Ter water diverted to the Barcelona area was 95 cubic hectometres in 2023, the historical minimum.
Another of the options proposed more than fifteen years ago, the use of regenerated water for agricultural irrigation, has also not been planned. Paradoxes of life, walking through the rice fields of Pericay, the only large concentrations of water visible are those that flood the fields closest to the sea. However, it is not fresh water, but salty, the result of the salinization of the land, which makes it unviable for cereal cultivation. Nothing but fleas attach to a skinny dog.
The situation is critical. It is not surprising that Pericay looks with some envy at farmers from other latitudes such as Brazil, a country where he recently went to an agricultural fair. “There is no bureaucracy here, there is a great agricultural training in the universities; they apply biotechnology to food and make efficient and sustainable production, they are 40 years ahead”, he explains.
JOSEPH PERICAY
Rice
