Honoring the name of their town, Sergi Ruiz and Tatiana Segura have opted for the cultivation of asparagus in Esparraguera, in Baix Llobregat. The couple has recovered old abandoned farms thanks to the mediation of the Parc Rural del Montserrat land bank. If everything goes as planned, starting in 2025 they will harvest up to 12 tons for each irrigated hectare. Ruiz and Segura thus do their bit to produce local food. A recent study by the Barcelona Provincial Council quantifies the recoverable surface area for agricultural uses in the province at 55,054 hectares, in places where once, in the 1950s, fruit trees, cereals and vegetables grew.
Every meter gained to replant is very valuable since currently the regions of Barcelona only have the capacity to feed 10% of their population with local products. In Catalonia as a whole this figure rises to 44%. The consumption of kilometer 0 is a chimera as long as the farmer's work is not revalued and the recovery of fields is encouraged.
In this line of promoting agricultural development in Barcelona are the initiatives designed by the BCN Smart Rural project, promoted by the council with European funds. Its coordinator, Sònia Callau, indicates that for three years they have been promoting land banks, a tool to promote intermediation between owners with uncultivated farms and young farmers or ranchers who want to dedicate themselves to this world but do not have fields or pastures. for a start.
“The first objective is to fight fires, there is a lot of continuous forest mass that poses a great risk, that is why it is necessary to recover the mosaic landscape with pastures and agriculture, and at the same time increase our capacity for food self-sufficiency,” explains Callau.
Between 1956 and 2018, the province of Barcelona reduced its cultivable area by 120,500 hectares, at a rate of almost 2,000 per year, the aforementioned study states. Most of the 55,054 hectares potentially recoverable for agricultural uses are now classified as pastures (30,203) and forests (16,225). The remaining 8,626 are suitable for producing food again. Bages, Anoia and Alt Penedès are the regions with the largest area that could be used again for farming.
“The objective was to identify the problem, put numbers on it, to decide the actions we will take. We now have six land banks integrated into the Catalan network. There are many people who do not come from a peasant family, do not have fields and want to rent them, we put them in contact with the owners of abandoned farms,” adds Callau.
This is the case of Sergi Ruiz, 40, and Tatiana Segura, 37, who have promoted two different projects in Esparreguera thanks to the mediation of the Parc Rural del Montserrat land bank. On the Ocata farm there are three and a half hectares dedicated mainly to asparagus and olive trees. “When we arrived, in 2022, the fruit trees that were there were destroyed by the actions of the wild boars and because they were not taken care of; We uprooted them and planted 5,000 asparagus plants on land with water next to the Llobregat. In another space we have olive trees and we will grow more asparagus. We practice regenerative agriculture and permaculture,” emphasizes Ruiz, who currently combines his work as an audiovisual producer with the countryside. “We want to promote the asparagus culture in Esparreguera,” he says. Not in vain, five green asparaguses appear on the municipality's coat of arms. In addition to selling the fresh product, they will make preserves in a workshop in Abrera. The rental agreement with the owners is for ten years.
For his part, Segura is also in charge of another project on the farm that he has named Can Rasca Orella with whose owners they have signed a purchase option that would materialize in 2024. “It had been abandoned for at least 20 years. Here we will grow medicinal plants and gardens, not to sell but to train on the practices of regenerative agriculture and permaculture,” explains Segura, formerly an auditor but who in recent years has trained in ethnobotany, phytotherapy and environmentally friendly agricultural practices. the earth.
To avoid the loss of more fields, Callau points out that they are analyzing how to create a database of farms of farmers about to retire.
