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Farmers in Spain’s main fruit and vegetable growing areas of the Levante – namely in the Murcia Region, the province of Almeria in Andalucia and parts of Alicante – staged a huge protest in Madrid this Wednesday January 11 after Teresa Ribera, the vice-president of Spain and Minister for Ecological Transition, decided to reduce water transfers through the Tajo-Segura pipeline by 40% in exchange for the use of more desalinated water.

 

Irrigators and representatives of almost all political parties on both the left and right came out against the decision, claiming it will limit the amount of water available to water their crops and thus force them to pay many times more for each hour of irrigation.

 

In turn, they say, this will drive up the price of food products in the supermarkets even more than inflation and the Ukraine crisis already have done.

 

This was the third demonstration in Madrid in recent years in defence of the aqueduct, which the organisers described as a success given the effort required to mobilise and move the sector in such a short time. While the irrigators were at the protest, all farming production and work was stopped.

 

The protest was attended by all irrigation and rural organisations, cooperatives, employers’ associations, social economy organisations, transporters, trade unions and companies linked to the agricultural sector, as well as the fruit and vegetable employers’ associations Fepex and Fenacore.

 

The organisers put the attendance at around 15,000 people, while the Government Delegation estimated around 4,000. More than 130 buses travelled in the early hours of the morning, along with a large number of private vehicles.

 

Despite the mass demonstrations, the Minister has refused to budge on her decision, sticking to her guns with the Ministry’s initial proposal to make the staggered increase in the ecological flows of the Tajo conditional on the good state of the water bodies.

 

There are just a few days left before the Council of Ministers approves its plans, and as yet there is no reason to believe that the Ministry will change its position on the rigorous application of the progressive increase in the ecological flows in the Upper Tagus river, which will cause an estimated loss of 105 cubic hectometres of water per year from this source by 2027, 40% of what the irrigated lands of the Levante receive.

 

At the same time, the Ministry promises the delivery of 120 cubic hectometres by 2027, coming from recycled and desalinated water, which they say will be more environmentally friendly. In the meantime, in may be lean times for southern Spain’s farmers, and the consumers and businesses who depend on them too.

 

Image: @jm_perezsanchez / Twitter