His is one of the accredited voices of Catalan horticulture. Mercè Martínez, president of the Catalan Flower and Ornamental Plant Market of Vilassar de Mar (Maresme) leads Indústria Verda, the entity that brings together all the Catalan associations and guilds involved from the origin with plants, seeds, production, marketing, to auxiliary elements and services related to the green sector. At this moment there are 17 entities that represent 4,800 companies and more than 1,600 commercial establishments, employing more than 82,000 workers and generating an annual business volume of 5,000 million euros.
Despite the magnitude of the sector represented, Martínez regrets that the Generalitat does not address their demands. He highlights the inconsistencies of an administration that he denounces as “instead of making recommendations, it threatens and sanctions us” and, instead, “turns a deaf ear” to their requests. They estimate that the sector could record losses of more than 8,000 million if they are forced to stop planting. “It took us a year to sell the plant” and if they are not allowed to continue with their activity “the rest of Europe will invade us.”
The Mercat de la Flor, for Mercè Martínez, is a simile with the Asterix and Obelix comics. “We are Gaul, the only market in southern Europe, we are resilient,” they say, but if they are not allowed the magic potion of regenerated water “they will finish us off.”
They demand measures as basic as “being able to use regenerated water” that is now prohibited to them. An inconsistency, they say “when they don't let us irrigate with recovered water and instead they are washing streets with it.” These coercive measures “can wipe out 80% of the sector.”
They highlight the great lack of knowledge of an area in which the administration "until recently forced to reduce 80% of water consumption" when it is known that nurseries "no longer use tap water" but instead produce regenerated water "that we cannot use." , even if it is bought.” Martínez calculates that a nursery "has plenty of water with 200 liters of consumption", since it is a highly technical sector with great advances in drip irrigation, humidity probes or rainwater collection among other technical devices.
“We are committed to marketing” but due to the drought crisis “municipalities have begun to break contracts” so the plants remain in the nursery. Horticulturists fear that spring will arrive “the strongest time of the year, and this has no signs of being fixed.” It is necessary, they insist, “that they let us water” with the same water with which they water the streets, “why not the plants?” when irrigation also “feeds the subsoil and groundwater.”
In the industrial sector, the one that consumes the most water of all, the Generalitat imposes restrictions of up to 25%. “For tax purposes, we are considered industries “but they reduced our consumption by 80%” despite the fact that recently this percentage has been limited to 50%. Even so, they consider these administration practices “discrimination.” “They are criminalizing the sector, they need to sell a positive image” and not just one of restriction and crisis.
“We can maintain the climate refuges if they allow us to collect reclaimed water.” Lacerating the plant and flower sector has a great impact on the environment: “if we lose the flowers, bees and pollination will also be lost.”
They consider that the Catalan administration "lacks empathy, they do not make country policies, they only limit themselves to chair politics," criticizes Mercè Martínez who does not understand how, being an industrial fabric, the sector is penalized as is done with agriculture. “Can anyone imagine a city without urban green?” she asks.
Greenery in municipalities and gardens "is a positive climate action" that in the current drought situation "is not given enough importance", despite the benefits that the maintenance of green spaces has in the conservation of the environment, biodiversity and physical and mental health For all this, they demand what they define as the “survival risk” of public and private green spaces, which “given the global emergency situation, it is necessary to enhance and not reduce.”
They deplore that a sector, the green industry, which in the last 30 years has promoted the construction of gardens with sustainability criteria, the production of plants adapted to the climatic conditions of low water requirements and the optimization of production processes, investing in water saving systems “can afford to continue suffering from the application of general measures that impact the economic viability” of companies and workers.
They understand that the current application of the drought plan “disables the use of intermediate systems” to the extent that those that until now have invested in savings, regeneration and accumulation and collection of water resources “are not considered in the useful cycle and reused for sectoral uses, which is why they also “promote the desertification of the humanized environment.”
The sector demands that the administration “reverse this incoherent situation” that prevents those who have their own resources from being able to disconnect from the public network and “be self-sufficient” since the use of these resources is prohibited.
“We are not asking for more water, we are asking to be able to optimize existing resources” and that is why they demand the creation of a certification of water efficiency for green spaces. A measure applicable in the medium term "but very necessary for future crises."
