The electoral campaign for the regional elections of February 13 in Castile and León, a region in northern Spain, has taken a carnivorous turn. The controversy had been brewing for a few months, it literally ignited after the statements at the end of December by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, of the radical left party Podemos, in the British daily The Guardian.
By opposing traditional agriculture, which he considers environmentally sustainable, to intensive agriculture, criticizing in particular large livestock farms, Alberto Garzón has drawn the wrath of some of the breeders. A usual speech for the minister who never ceases to alert on the consequences of this mode of production on soil and water contamination by nitrates.
Agriculture, a delicate subject
The right, the extreme right and some socialist leaders in the regions also quickly rose up. The socialist government, uncomfortable, felt in the process that its minister of consumption was speaking in a personal capacity. The subject is delicate on the eve of an election in one of the most agricultural regions and in a country with the highest per capita meat consumption in Europe.
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The debate, however, does not date from yesterday. There are no longer many cases of large farms setting up in villages where the inhabitants are opposed to it. So much so that many mobilization platforms have been created across the country. The situation worries all the way to Brussels, where the European Commission has issued several warnings regarding the control of water quality. She will file an appeal against Spain to the Court of Justice of the EU for not having taken adequate measures to avoid contamination by nitrates.
A moratorium to limit the development of large farms
Greenpeace, for its part, launched a campaign in April 2021 by distributing 400 nitrate measuring devices in villages. Some residents then had the bad surprise to find that the tap water was not drinkable.
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Julio Barea, responsible for the campaign on the water, accuses the maxi-farms and intensive breeding. “Factory farming is a real disaster, he storms. We are endangering our strategic water reserves. It is a lie to say that these farms support these villages. If they want to attract tourists, it is necessary to maintain traditional agriculture and breeding, which is what gives work, social fabric and economic activity to these territories. “Several Spanish regions have already imposed a moratorium to limit the installation of large farms.
In Lastras de Cuellar, in the province of Segovia, less than two hours north of Madrid, for six years, every Monday, residents have to pick up bottles of water in the town square. It took the mobilization of the population for the authorities to finally decide to build a pipe to bring drinking water by… 2022. But the problem concerns all of Spain, and in particular the depopulated areas. More than a quarter (28%) of the country’s groundwater stations have a nitrate concentration above or close to the potability threshold.
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