It's a desperate SOS. A dramatic cry intoned by thousands of families, those dedicated to agriculture in Catalonia (the third economic sector), for an uncertain future. The extreme lack of rain has already taken its toll on dryland crops. The cereal planted in those fields where irrigation does not arrive is considered lost. This will have an impact of 70 million euros.
And even if it rained from now on as it hasn't in the last year, the situation in those farms (mostly wheat) would no longer be reversed. That cereal is dead and will have to be imported.
So in the dry fields, the die is cast by this historic and extreme drought. This is confirmed by Miquel Piñol and Santi Capdevila, from Unió de Pagesos. "The situation is very, very serious," they stress.
At this point, one thing hurts especially. "What is not acceptable is that there are people who, in these dramatic circumstances, accuse us, the farmers, of wasting water," they criticize. "But that water was no longer there this year long before the irrigation campaigns started!" they exclaim.
If you have to look for culprits, when the damage is done, Capdevila has another theory: "Why don't we ask ourselves how the hydroelectric plants have managed that resource, so scarce this year?"
Piñol reveals that at this time "90% of the dryland cereal crop is already considered lost." It is an exceptional situation, like the fact that many farmers changed months ago, when this severe drought began to glimpse, the seed sown in their fields. "In irrigated farms, corn has been replaced by summer cereals, such as sunflowers," he adds.
A change in strategy "that is going to charge another expensive bill in the coming months, because if Catalonia has not cultivated cereal, this product will have to be imported for the manufacture of feed", predicts Miquel Piñol.
Now the farmers suffer; later it will be the turn of the farmers and, in the end, all this will be noticed by the consumer in his pocket. It is a fish that bites the tail. That is dying, as never before, in the absence of institutional aid.
The fruit sector (now the cherry is starting to water) will be the next victim. And here the economic impact –compared to cereal– is multiplied by ten. If the rain does not come, trees will have to be thinned so that all the fruit does not die, which will reduce production.
Miquel and Santi, aged 49 and 43, do not remember a similar situation in the Catalan countryside due to the drought. To find a similar situation, one would have to go back to 1991, but then the lack of irrigation water was not as pressing as it is predicted to be this season.
The situation is further aggravated by the lack of investment and aid to modernize irrigation systems, which would now help make the little water that is allowed to run for irrigation much more profitable. The most critical state, points out Santi Capdevila, is currently being presented by Canal d'Urgell.
And the most terrible thing for farmers is the impotence with which they live this extreme drought. They depend exclusively on water and if that tap does not open, no matter how much you want to work, there is nothing to do.
