Josep Castells is one of the thousands of farmers who have taken to the roads these days and have stood in Barcelona to protest the agricultural crisis in which most years, if there is no weather damage, prices do not match. “With three kilos of peaches we pay for a coffee, the bills don't work out,” he says from Alcarràs, his town, where he grows fewer and fewer fruit trees and more almond trees.
He is one of the influencers in the agricultural sector. On X, formerly Twitter, his account “Lo tractor Rosa” is presented like this: Family farmers in the country of fruits and fog. He had 14,000 followers, although the social network closed it due to an error in his age and now he is beginning to recover his parish.
He insists that the price crisis has been going on since 2014, since the Russian veto of European agri-food products in response to the EU's reaction to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the first invasion of Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin closed all exports of agricultural products went there and automatically 25% of our fruit was left hanging. It went into free fall and we have practically not recovered,” he says.
Josep acknowledges that prices have risen a little, but the situation has not improved because production costs have also risen: fuel, fertilizers or energy and labor.
Castells recalls that the stone fruit study presented by the Climate Action Department last July placed the production cost estimated by the farmer at an average of 0.409 euros, without taking into account family labor. If the expenditure on family labor and the cost of manufacturing is taken into account, the production cost would rise to 0.992 euros per kilo, with a range between the minimum and maximum cost of 0.899 euros per kilo and 1.105 according to the study prepared by the Department and the Center for Research in Agri-Food Economics and Development (CREDA).
Knowing the accounts of many farmers, he assures that in some fruit cooperatives in the Ebro Valley it has been settled at 0.40 euros. “You have to make a lot of kilos to survive, there are already family businesses in danger.”
Josep Castells and his brother have a sow farm and also grow sweet fruit and nuts. Less and less sweet fruit and more almonds. The peach, which years ago represented 70% of agricultural production, now only represents 40%. “It is mandatory – he says – to have several productions in case one fails so as not to lose everything.” The farm, which his son has joined, is in full conversion to continue growing nuts.
“Basically because it is a crop with more stable prices. We are lucky that 80% of world almond production is in the United States, which is where the price is set. There they have higher production costs than ours, the producers want to make a living and that supports prices a bit. There are oscillations, but it gives more security,” he explains. And he gives more arguments: it is a crop that can be mechanized, it does not require as much labor and it is not so perishable. “If you don't like the price – he remarks – you don't sell. The sweet fruit has to be consumed within a week.”
Castells trusts in the mobilizations of the sector, which in his opinion are giving good results. “We are at the beginning, I believe that they are serving. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the withdrawal of the law that sought to reduce the use of phytosanitary products throughout the EU, and has also withdrawn the obligation to leave fallow. And we will achieve more, because we will continue to mobilize.”
And he also says that a good observer can see that it is not a claim of Catalonia, Aragon or Portugal, but rather it is global. “The alarms are going off, I don't remember another mobilization in which all the farmers have risen up at the same time. In a matter of three days – he proudly states – we have created a chicken using WhatsApp.”
And despite the long crisis in the sector, he remains hopeful that his effort will be worth it. He often tells his son, Roger, who will continue on the job, that it is a job in which you have the possibility of growing. “I know there are difficulties but if you are smart you can move forward by working very hard. The farmer does not have a schedule and if he is also a rancher he has less free time,” he insists.
He defines his job as “a hard but satisfying life because you work for yourself, in the middle of nature” while other jobs depend on a payroll. For him, the best thing about being a farmer is that it is a “very creative job in the middle of nature.” The worst is what you can't control. As an example, he cites the cucumber crisis, when due to a false accusation from Germany against Spanish production, the price plummeted and the sector was ruined.
It also alludes to dispatch decisions far from agricultural work. One of his X messages reproduces a phrase attributed to US President Dwight Eisenhower: “Agriculture looks easy when the plow is a pencil and you are a thousand miles from the cornfield.”
