5% of agricultural land will disappear in Spain in 2030

2023-04-29 12:56:56

Experts warn that being the garden of europe it will end up condemning us to be its desert. Climate change is advancing inexorably and desertification is already a reality that threatens 20% of the Spanish soilhe. However, statistics indicate that while the cultivated area has fallen by 3% from 2008 to 2018, according to data collected in the National Strategy to Combat Desertification, approved in June 2022 by the Ministry for Ecological Transition, crops that need more water increase. There is an increase in non-citrus fruit trees, and within these, of almondhe pistachio, he avocado and the mangowhich have experienced “a great boom in area in recent years.”

Andalusia, the community together with the Canary Islands most threatened by desertification, had in the latest statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture 40.2% of its total cultivated area (3.5 million hectares) and of those 31.84% dedicated to irrigation (1.12 million hectares). Is it sustainable to grow mango or avocadovery demanding fruits in their water needs, in the Axarquia from Malaga or in the Grenada Tropical Coast? Is it normal that the greatest production of red berries, originally typical of a humid climate like Scotland, occurs in Huelva? Doñana is a symbol but it is not only happening in the surroundings of the Natural Park. The problem extends to many other areas of Spain.

lose votes

Javier Martinez Valderramaa researcher at the CSIC’s Experimental Station for Arid Zones, one of the leading experts on desertification in the country, resorts to a phrase from Jean-Claude Juncker, former president of the European Commission: “We know what to do, but we don’t know how to be re-elected after doing it.” We know what to do but we don’t how to tell people so you don’t lose votes”, he explains when talking about desertification in Spain. “It is not only Andalusia. In Extremadura we have gone from 500 hectares of irrigated vineyards to 20,000. Once farmers have water rights and ask for it, they feel legitimized. Irrigated land is five times more productive than dry land”, explains the CSIC expert. The european union water directive of the year 2000, already makes it clear that it is possible to continue building reservoirs or desalination plants, but that the member states must stop providing the water and that whoever uses it, pays. It is a change of mentality that has not yet permeated in Spain.

Behind this model of intensive agriculture is what the agricultural organization COAG has already baptized as the ‘uberization’ of the Spanish countryside, farmers end up working as false self-employed at the service of large multinationals, such as the ”riders” or the VTC multinational drivers. The per capita income statistics of the National Institute of Statistics point to municipalities in the Western Almeria such as Níjar, Vicar or El Ejidowhere intensive agriculture under plastic triumphs, like those who throw worst wealth data in Andalusia. “It is a model that is neither environmentally nor socially profitable” and “nature will end up imposing itself”, warns Martínez Valderrama.

Three decades of studies and notices

Behind desertification there is not only climate change or drought, but there is a very important human part, all the studies underline. The UN sealed its fight against desertification in an international convention in 1998. A decade later Spain signed its first national plan, in 2008, and in that document the management of agriculture was already identified as key. Other desertification landscapes have changed. For example, overgrazing It has been disappearing in favor of intensive livestock macro-farms that bring other problems. “Cattle no longer graze in the fields but instead feed, for example, on soy that comes from South Americawhere the big ones suffer the felling subtropical forests. In this case desertification is relocated. It continues to be a problem but outside the country”, explains the CSIC expert. Other realities such as intensive agriculture or the abandonment of the land, which becomes a victim of large fires due to the rural exodus to the large cities, remain constant in the analysis of the situation in Spain. “They are desertification landscapes that have been consolidated in Spain,” says Martínez Valderrama.

The last document of the Ministry has yet to develop the great plans after making an accurate diagnosis. In these, experts who have collaborated on the document agree that the examination of the situation is good but in the end no measures are taken and everything ends up being politicized. “Now the Drought Table is convened. At a limit moment, of desperation, with elections around the corner. That is like going to the supermarket without having eaten, very hungry and without a shopping list”, Martínez Valderrama exemplifies graphically. The risk map is clear. Solutions are missing.

Better irrigation but more water

The strategy against desertification approved by the Ministry states that the “existence of profitable and sustainable irrigation can help prevent the abandonment of agricultural areas, contributing to the maintenance of the population in rural areas.” “Farmers must not be criminalized,” says Martínez Valderrama, although the evidence suggests that the conversion of the Spanish countryside to irrigated land is not sustainable. The Government is committed to the “modernization and improvement of irrigation” and agrarian organizations such as Asaja emphasize that in Andalusia, where almost one in every three hectares of irrigated land in Spain is located, it is the community “with the most efficient irrigation area”. “The localized risk has grown (26.37%), implemented in 429,617 new hectares since 2010, in line with the policy of efficient use of water”. point out from this agrarian organization. “In the total area in Spain, the most efficient irrigation accounts for about 77%,” defends Asaja.

The CSIC expert corroborates the improvement in irrigation techniques but warns of the jevons paradox applied to water: “As technological improvement increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, an increase in the consumption of that resource is more likely than a decrease.” Irrigation is becoming more sustainable but more and more water is needed because there is more irrigated area. “A calm analysis of the model would be needed, that is what is needed in Spain,” warns the scientist from the Arid Zones Experimental Station.

22% of Spanish soil

The diagnosis of the national desertification strategy leaves few doubts: “The effects of climate change lead to a scenario of general increase in the severity of droughts, both meteorological and hydrological.” Droughts will become more frequentmore intensely towards the south of the peninsula and in the archipelagos.

The land dedicated to crops currently represents 33.1% of the total area of ​​Spain (16.8 million hectares). Currently, the irrigated area in Spain is 3.8 million hectares, 22.63% of cultivated land and 7.57% of the geographical area. Communities like Canary Islands and the Valencian Community present surfaces of irrigation of around 50% of its total cultivated area. Cereals are the crop group with the largest irrigated area, representing 24.39% of the total area, followed by olive groves (22.24%), vineyards (10.37%) and non-citrus fruit trees (10 .24%). In the period 2010-2019 the irrigated cultivated area has increased by 14%, while the total cultivated area decreased by 1.3%.

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As regards the evolution of irrigation by type of crop, almond cultivation stands out, whose irrigated area has almost tripled between 2015 and 2020 due to the boom in the implementation of this crop in recent years. In the case of the olive grove and vineyard, there is a more moderate relative growth, although it is significant due to the large cultivation area they occupy.

On disappearance of agricultural landBesides of Northwest of spainthe worst prognoses are concentrated in the semi-arid southeast (Murcia, Almería, Granada, Málaga, southern Alicante and Albacete). An important situation of abandonment risk is also identified in the Central Ebro Depression which partially covers Zaragoza, Huesca, North Teruel, La Rioja and Navarra. The orographic and climatic conditions, together with the low viability and socioeconomic stability, the low demographic density (one of the lowest in Europe) and the lack of infrastructures and services, clearly favor the processes of abandonment of agricultural land.