Put gates to the field

What was once a leading integrated circuit factory in Tres Cantos is today closed and deserted because at the beginning of the millennium the option of buying chips produced in Asian countries was seen as more competitive.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 14:48
3 Reads
Put gates to the field

What was once a leading integrated circuit factory in Tres Cantos is today closed and deserted because at the beginning of the millennium the option of buying chips produced in Asian countries was seen as more competitive. The whole of Europe now recognizes the tremendous mistake that this decision meant and is urging itself to develop the European chip law to recover resilience in access to semiconductors.

But returning to having a minimum technological sovereignty will not be quick, easy, or cheap. The Spanish Government alone plans to invest billions in the coming years in a Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE) of microelectronics. Multiply it throughout the European Union, it's going to cost us a loaf of cake.

And it is that the relocation paradigm and the myth of Just-in-time made us believe that it was better to buy everything the cheaper the better, always, wherever it came from. But one day the pandemic came, a freighter got stuck in the Suez Canal or one more war started, damn it. Then we realized that what we thought was guaranteed never is. Even less when he has to come from a remote place that we know nothing about, where they know nothing about us. We saw that some things are very necessary, to make our cars for example. Others are essential, urgent, even vital.

We will come out better, we said.

Kate Raworth in her famous Donut Economy denounces that the current economic models do not allow guaranteeing the needs and rights of citizens without compromising ecological limits, and vice versa either. She explains that, contrary to what many maintain, the theory that sustained economic growth allows balancing social inequalities and reducing the impact on nature is not always true, because in many cases these problems are only solved locally when they are outsourced.

In other words, on too many occasions, when it comes to producing goods, it is not that thanks to investment or technology, poor working conditions or ecological damage end up disappearing, but that they are transferred to other places. And eyes that do not see, heart that does not feel.

Productivity without perspective cannot be the only guide. Since all human beings have rights and live on the same planet, our responsibility must extend its scope and scope.

I am telling you this because Europe is currently committed to biodiversity and environmental protection, as it should be. With the plant and animal species and their habitats, the seabed, the quality of the water, the richness of the soil, the reduction of greenhouse gases... With everything that is essential for life, in short. As are the food that the 450 million inhabitants of the European Union need every day.

Therefore, out of responsibility, in addition to protecting the European environment, we must ensure that the food we eat does not harm the environment or working conditions elsewhere in the world. It would not be fair, supportive, ethical or intelligent because, even if there are customs, you cannot put doors to the countryside, the sea or the atmosphere. Neither climate change is stagnant nor will we have guaranteed food if we do not favor ecologically and socially sustainable production conditions everywhere.

We cannot be food nimbys. We can't want a very nice and uncluttered backyard while what we eat is grown, raised and fished in any way far from our home.

If producing food has costs, which it does, we must be aware of them, assume them and ensure that this production is increasingly cleaner, fairer and more efficient. To achieve that, thanks to knowledge and responsibility, we make it sustainable without cheating to maintain a large, healthy and diverse network of agri-food producers throughout the European territory. That farmers, fishermen and processors have their activity guaranteed so that we all have our right to eat every day guaranteed.

And that does not mean neither avoiding trade nor wishing for autarky, but it does mean being aware and acting accordingly, from small children to political positions through the whole of society, that our daily bread and oil and tomato and the sardine that accompanies it, and the beans with sausage and the milk and the eggs and the wine and the cherries for dessert do not fall every day from the sky. Sometimes not even the water falls enough, and with all this you have to deal now and in the future.

Because what we eat, how it is produced, where and to whom, is our problem. And better not wait for it to be missing to realize it.