2023-12-22 22:15:32
A study has analyzed the social, economic and environmental consequences of greenhouse agriculture in arid areas, taking Almería (in Andalusia, Spain) as a model.
The study was carried out by a team led by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Spain.
Arid areas are characterized by their poor hydrological balance: it rains little, very irregularly, and high solar radiation causes a lot of water to evaporate. Traditionally they are little developed places, but they have a series of characteristics (mild winters, many hours of sunshine) that make them regions with high agricultural potential. The exploitation of the groundwater they contain, together with a series of technological and political factors, has turned many of these areas into places of prosperity, to the point of acquiring the name of “economic miracle.”
There is a recurring interest on the part of European countries that consume fruits and vegetables produced in southern Europe in knowing the effects of their production on the environment. The demand for fresh products in European markets has, in the first instance, an enormous impact on the groundwater reserves of the southeast of the peninsula. “However, this is an issue with many more edges and impacts, the analysis of which is addressed in this work,” says Jaime Martínez Valderrama, researcher at the Experimental Station for Arid Zones (EEZA) of the CSIC, who leads the study.
“Our study, which takes the greenhouse agriculture of Almería as an example, shows that the social and environmental toll of a development that is as rapid as it is disorderly (especially in its first phase) can turn the miracle into an ephemeral event,” says Martínez Valderrama. . “The gradual depletion of water resources, their degradation, the loss of biodiversity and plastic pollution are the less friendly side of a business that seeks to propel itself with increasingly greater investments,” adds the researcher. “This generates debt and social inequalities, which in turn lead to the intensification of a production model that seeks to lower production costs at all costs. The result is an agribusiness dependent on external resources (energy, fertilizers, labor, capital) that places it in a position of increasing dependence and vulnerability,” explains Martínez Valderrama.
Agriculture under plastic on the coast of Almería. (Photo: Jaime Martínez Valderrama)
This is a pattern seen in other arid areas of the world, such as Peru, North Africa, northwest China and Saudi Arabia. Understanding these mechanisms is key to proposing solutions, which range from the search for alternative water resources to reducing the crop area, searching for crops better adapted to aridity or expanding farmers’ profit margins.
“In many cases the focus of the problem is on the producers and production sites, where the damage is apparent. However, it is important to consider the entire production chain and distribute responsibilities. We must not forget that this persistent search for reducing production costs is spurred by consumers and distribution chains whose objective is to buy at the lowest possible price,” concludes Martínez Valderrama.
This study involved the participation of a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Alicante, the Catholic University of Murcia and the Polytechnic University of Madrid, all of them in Spain.
The study is titled “Uberizing agriculture in drylands: A few enriched, everyone endangered.” And it has been published in the academic journal Water Resources Management. (Source: EEZA / CSIC)
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