If the rain does not remedy it, this is on track to be the worst rice campaign for Josep Pericay, who has been cultivating this cereal in the Baix Ter for more than 30 years, which requires humid soils and abundant water to grow. The numbers he anticipates point to a total disaster. “If everything remains the same and they don't guarantee us irrigation, we won't even be able to plant, doing so would be a real suicide,” says the rice farmer, who chairs the Pals Rice Plant Defense Association (ADV), which brings together 25 producers who They market this food under the brand Arrós de Pals.
He doesn't talk just to talk. He recognizes that no one will dare to plant a seed if they do not have guaranteed water resources, something that does not happen today. “Planting a hectare of rice costs around 3,000 euros, including the seed, phytosanitary products, land rental, the means to irrigate...,” he says. Pericay has leased 180 hectares of land for rice cultivation between the municipalities of Torroella de Montgrí, Pals, Palau-Sator, Fontanilles, Bellcaire d'Empordà and Castelló d'Empúries. The ADV totals about 1,100 hectares, whose cultivation area was already reduced considerably in the last campaign due to the lack of rainfall.
In the fields on the left bank of the Ter River, the reduction was 70% and on the right, 30%. That translated into about 1,500 fewer tons of 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 the rice cultivation in Catalonia. Pericay warns that an uncultivated field, even for only one year, can be the first step towards the progressive abandonment of the land. “And if the land is abandoned, the speculators will soon arrive. We can't afford it, if the rice campaign is lost one year it will be very difficult to recover," says the rice farmer. He highlights that many families and businesses make a living from this crop, which in the Baix Ter is known to have been practiced since the 15th century. There are five rice industries in the area.
The farmer explains that today the fields are dry and that the recent rains have barely served to save the winter cereal and fruit trees and alleviate the environmental drought “a little.” “Now we have a Government in office that will not make decisions and let's forget about the promises made in Parliament, such as a basic agricultural income or aid of 200 euros per hectare in irrigated areas where irrigation cannot be done,” he laments. The campaign is on its way to being historic: losses would reach 100%.
For now, the only hope that the rice farmers have is to look at the sky. In 2008, with the last great drought, a miracle was performed in extremis and a harvest that was anticipated to be ruinous, like the current one, was saved. Time plays against us. Currently the fields are in winter rest. Planting will start at the end of April and can be extended until May 15, if farmers dare to plant. About 35 or 40 days later the land would be flooded, a period that lasts about one hundred days. The harvest will begin at the end of September and, like sowing, rice farmers in this area have been doing it dry for a long time.
“We were pioneers in 2015 in adopting dry sowing in Spain and with this system we saved 35% of water,” explains Pericay, very critical of the governments that have allowed the lack of water to be a serious problem today. 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 of all those solutions that emerged in 2008, with the last great water crisis, such as the connection of Barcelona to the Ebro water network, they have not been executed. . “There is still no hydraulic balance in Catalonia; It is inconceivable that today there has not been an interconnection of basins. It is the base, not only for agriculture, but also for tourism. If not, in the easternmost Catalonia there will soon be nothing left of all that,” 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 water from the Ter diverted to the Barcelona area was 95 cubic hectometers in 2023, its historical minimum.
Another option proposed more than 15 years ago, such as the use of regenerated water for agricultural irrigation, has also not been considered. Paradoxes of life, when walking through the rice fields of Pericay, the only large concentrations of water visible are those that flood the fields closest to the sea. But it is not fresh water, but salty, the result of the salinization of the land, which makes it unviable for cereal cultivation. A skinny dog is all about fleas.
The situation is critical. It is not strange that Pericay looks with some envy at farmers from other latitudes such as Brazil, a country where he recently attended an agricultural fair. “There is not the bureaucracy that there is here, there is great agrarian training in the universities; They apply biotechnology to food and make efficient and sustainable production, they are 40 years advanced,” he explains.
