Agrifood Brief: I miss the rains down in Aragon

In much of Aragon in the northeast of Spain, agriculture is kept alive by large-scale irrigation systems. What some see as the key to ensuring a viable future for the next generation in the region is at the heart of an ‘irrigation paradox’ for others.

Life and farming in Huesca province in the north of Aragon are well described by two statistics, both of which are exceptionally low.

Firstly, with only 14 inhabitants per square kilometre, the region is very sparsely populated, even for Spain, whose population density is already below the EU average. And secondly, Huesca sees very little precipitation, especially in the summer months, with an average of 20 millimetres in July.

Driving through the region, you see vast, flat stretches of steppe which, on closer inspection, turn out to be arable land, rarely interspersed with very small villages or even solitary farm buildings.

On closer inspection, you can see thin metal poles erected across the fields, one every few metres across the hectares and hectares of farmland.

They are part of what sustains farming in such a dry area: Large-scale irrigation systems, which bring water from reservoirs in the nearby Pyrenees to crops across the region. And for those involved, they are key to ensuring rural life in the region has a future at all.

“In depopulated regions like this one, you can see the potential that innovation and correct water use have for stabilising the population and ensuring our youth understands that a future exists on this land,” Yolanda Gimeno, head of external relations at Riegos de Alto Aragón, said during a visit to Montesusín on the southern border of Huesca province.

Alberto Anadón, president of the Montesusín irrigation community, added the aim is for “our children to carry on what we are doing. For this, we need to show them we are being sustainable”. 

An irrigation system on a field in Alto Aragón

Riegos de Alto Aragón is a public corporation and functions as a network of 48 local “irrigation communities”, including Montesusín, which organise the supply and provision of water in the region.

“A network of reservoirs and channels distribute water from the mountains to the driest areas,” Gimeno explains.

The infrastructure is used to supply both irrigation and drinking water. Otherwise, “ensuring a drinking water infrastructure in these sparsely populated areas would be very difficult,” according to Gimeno.

In cases of scarcity, the irrigation communities agree on the distribution of water between different uses, communities, and farmers in accordance with government rules on water use priorities.

“This is a very efficient way of working and avoids disputes,” says Gimeno.

The region saw two extremely dry years before rain picked up again recently. While this posed major challenges for farmers, “we were able to manage the situation efficiently through optimising water use,” Gimeno proudly explained.

The necessary investments in and maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure were supported by the Spanish state as well as the European Union, through the rural development pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Part of the canal system that transports water down from mountain reservoirs.

A total of €1.3 million came from Spain’s rural development plan within the CAP during the 2014 to 2022 funding period.

Spain’s newly reinstated Agriculture Minister Luis Planas has also vowed to make irrigation modernisation one of the priorities for his next term in office.

However, some say irrigation technology is a double-edged sword.

According to the New Water Culture Foundation (FNCA), based in Aragón, modernisation is often followed by intensification processes like double cropping and more water-intensive crops. “These increases in production neutralise the water savings,” reads the organisation’s website. 

The organisation also warns modernisation projects can cause a deficit in the basins, as “modern irrigation technology substantially reduces irrigation returns to rivers and aquifers”. 

Scientist Alberto Fernández Lop supported these arguments in an article for the World Wildlife Fund in 2022, in which he also called on authorities to reduce water concessions and prevent potential savings from being used to intensify irrigation. 

Also, according to a UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2017 report, “[the] Jevons’ paradox, predicting that improved efficiency of resource use tends to increase its consumption (…) applies also to water”. 

An olive tree field in Southeastern Aragon, including irrigation.

Wherever you stand on the irrigation question, however, one thing is as daunting as it is clear: Very probably, the situation is only going to get worse.

With climate change, extreme weather such as drought is set to become more frequent and more grave. At the same time, drought in the region also increasingly comes with extreme heat – a problem that irrigation cannot solve.

“Drought has always been a problem, but now we deal with heat,” Alfredo Caldú Celma, an olive farmer active in the southeast of Aragon, said during a field visit.

Olive trees usually flower in April, he explained. But the unusually high temperature in April this year meant many flowers were destroyed, and thus could not develop into olives.

For Caldú Celma, the heat is the next big challenge: “You can correct drought with water – but there is nothing you can do about the heat.”

By Julia Dahm and Maria Simon Arboleas

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News of the week

New ge(NO?)mic techniques. There will be two key votes on the next steps for the EU’s plan to loosen the rules on the use of new genetic techniques next week.

Over in the Council, the Spanish Presidency hopes to seal the deal on a general approach in the next meeting of EU ministers, set for Monday (11 December) – but, according to sources, it will be touch and go whether there is enough support for the position.

At least nine member states have “explicitly or implicitly” spoken out against the general approach, according to multiple sources close to the matter. These include Poland, Austria, Cyprus, Croatia, Hungary, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Meanwhile, the majority of those in favour of the text have also stated they cannot make further concessions to opponents. 

However, the vote must pass by a qualified majority, meaning a combination of 55% of member states vote in favour (or against) – in practice, 15 out of 27 – as well as member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population.

This means the vote hinges on EU juggernaut Germany – and it is highly likely that it will choose to abstain, according to sources, given a divide between the country’s green-led agriculture ministry and its liberal research and science ministry. 

Meanwhile, over in the European Parliament, the agriculture committee is also gearing up to vote on its opinion on the matter on Monday. While the committee is not the lead on the file, it does share competence on several key areas of the file, including on the status of category 1 NGT plants.

Strategic dialogue. Addressing EU agrifood stakeholders at the EU executive’s agricultural outlook conference on Wednesday (6 December), European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen confirmed that her long-awaited strategic dialogue on the future of agriculture, which she unveiled in September to foster “more dialogue and less polarisation”, will be launched in January.

According to the president, this will involve the full range of agrifood actors, and will orient around several core questions, including ways to support rural communities and ensure a fair standard of living for them, as well as supporting agriculture “within the boundaries of our planet and its ecosystem”.

She also announced that the EU executive plans to put forward an initiative on EU biotech and biomanufacturing in the spring of next year in efforts to boost a “crucial industrial sector in the midst of the global technology race”.

For EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, the dialogue will also help set the course of discussions on the shape of the future Common Agricultural Policy, including budgetary discussions and the possibility of a third pillar for crisis intervention.

Agriculture’s crystal ball. The European Commission anticipates more price volatility, fewer and larger farms and less diversity in European agriculture over the next decade, according to the findings of a report published on Thursday (7 December).

“We need to pay particular attention to food affordability in the coming years,” an EU official told journalists on the sidelines of the EU executive’s agricultural outlook conference on Wednesday (6 December). 

Climate change was found to be one of the main drivers of change in the outlook, causing shifts in land use and volatility in yields. The report found that water scarcity in the EU is unlikely to reduce by 2030, leading to increased competition and more frequent restrictions on water use. 

The EU official also added that the Commission expects production to move “to the north[ern] part of Europe (…) in the next decade”. 

According to the report, other sources of uncertainty include “geopolitical conflicts and certain free-trade agreements under negotiation”, which could change the course of EU’s trade relations. Data suggests a significant increase in poultry imports from Ukraine after the EU lifted restrictions on Ukrainian goods in June 2022 following Russia’s invasion of the country. The European Commission recently acknowledged “some risk” of imports driving down prices and threatening local production of poultry, eggs and sugar. 

Meanwhile, in terms of the structure of the agriculture sector, the report found that 52% of the EU’s agricultural land in 2020 was in the hands of farms larger than 100 hectares, and the trend is for farm sizes to continue to increase. “Diversity has reduced over the last decades (…) we have larger and larger farms,” the EU official said. 

Animal welfare ‘package’. The European Commission has put forward its proposals for stricter rules on animal transport and pets.

The proposals come in lieu of the comprehensive overhaul of all EU animal welfare legislation that the Commission had originally promised as part of the Farm to Fork Strategy but has now given up on tabling before the end of the mandate next year.

“The work is ongoing,” Šefčovič told a press conference when asked about the omission of large parts of the originally envisaged package. “We have to realise that it is extremely technical and demanding.”

However, since the EU executive does not plan to make further proposals on animal welfare before next June’s EU election, it will be up to the next Commission to decide anew about when and which initiatives should be tabled.

But campaigners have lambasted a number of loopholes, while large parts of the originally envisaged animal welfare overhaul have been left to the next mandate. See here for the details about the conditions proposed by the Commission. 

Fur farming. The Commission also responded this week to a European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Fur Free Europe’, in which more than 1.5 million citizens called on the EU to ban fur farming and the placement of farmed fur products on the market.

Despite the staunch support for the move, the Commission decided not to take action on the matter at this time, instead tasking the EU Food Safety Authority EFSA with “a scientific opinion on the welfare of animals farmed for fur”.

A decision on legislative action is then set to be taken on the basis of this opinion, but this is not expected to be finalised by March 2025.

Antitrust guidelines. The European Commission adopted guidelines on how to design sustainability agreements in the field of agriculture. While agreements between companies that restrict competition, such as those between competitors that lead to higher prices or lower quantities, are generally prohibited, there are certain exceptions for the agricultural sector when related to sustainability. The guidelines are therefore intended to help operators active in the agri-food sector to design joint sustainability initiatives.

Agrifood news from the CAPitals

ROMANIA

Romania has not imported Ukrainian farm products in the past six months. Romania has not imported agricultural products, including wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower, from Ukraine in the last six months, data on registered customs operations from the Romanian Customs Authority shows. Read more.

SPAIN 

Catalonia and Andalusia prepare for the worst. Following the Catalan authorities – who announced last month that Barcelona’s port was preparing to receive water shipments if there is not enough rain by March – the Andalusian regional government is considering using tankers to supply the population where the drought is most extreme. “In the summer, if not a drop of water falls”, boats would bring drinking and “raw” water to the ports of Algeciras and Málaga, Andalusia’s Agriculture Minister Carmen Crespo said on Tuesday (5 December). This year, Spain experienced its second driest spring since records began in 1961, and both have been the most affected. 

UK – POLAND

Rise in UK salmonella cases linked to Polish poultry imports. According to Farming UK, the public are being told to take extra precaution when handling and cooking poultry following a rise in salmonella cases linked to imports from Poland. A Food Standards Agency (FSA) investigation is ongoing into multiple strains of salmonella linked to poultry products imported to the UK from Poland.

FRANCE

France on high alert for avian influenza. The French Agricultural Ministry has put the country on its highest possible risk level for highly pathogenic avian influenza after a case was detected on a farm in Morbihan at the end of November. As such, the country has stepped up its preventive measures in efforts to protect poultry farms, including tighter measures on transport of poultry and enclosures. 

GERMANY

Farmers’ outlook cautiously optimistic. The German Farmers’ Association’s yearly “situation report,” published on Thursday, takes a cautiously optimistic outlook on the situation of the sector. According to the report, farms’ operating results continued to markedly improved during this economic year. “This recovery is urgently needed so that farmers can cope with the increased market risks and climate risks,” the association’s president, Joachim Rukwied, said in a statement. However, farms still made relatively few investments. “It is alarming that farms are hardly investing in new stables, even though important future investments are pending,” Rukwied added.

AUSTRIA

Record soy harvest. Austria saw the biggest ever soy harvest this year, the Austrian Soy Association announced on Tuesday. Reaching a total of 266,420 tonnes, the country’s harvest grew be 9% compared to the previous year, according to the association – even though slightly less land was used for soy production. Austria “has perfect conditions” for growing soy, the organisation’s chair, Karl Fischer, said.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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