Has the countryside been the first great victim of globalisation?

The western countryside has not only been a victim of globalisation, because globalisation is also affecting other areas, moreover the agricultural world is experiencing very good times. The agricultural world has been a victim of the brutal drop in prices due to globalisation and the concentration of distribution. The price fell so much that it became invisible to society. And as a result, the process that we have seen over the last few decades began.

So you point to distribution as one of the agents responsible.

In the 80s, 90s and 2000s, distribution became very concentrated and acquired a great deal of buying power and pushed prices very hard. This competition between distributors was transmitted downwards. Distribution is responsible for having squeezed prices to the point of ruin for farmers, but it is not responsible for the rise in prices that we are having now. When they say that prices are going up a lot because distribution is taking the advantage away, it is not true. Distribution is the same now as it was 10 years ago. What is happening is that imports are becoming more expensive and we are becoming more and more dependent on them because we have restricted our productive capacity and there is less supply and that is why prices are going up.

In August 2009 you wrote: "Sooner rather than later, the countryside will take its revenge in the form of food shortages, which will rise sharply and unexpectedly in price". Why, if it was so obvious to you 15 years ago, has nobody done anything to prevent it?

Because the imaginaries are very strong. And now it is very difficult to change it. Urban society values agriculture and the environment so little that, deep in their souls, they want the countryside to be for walking. And the whole European standard is made in this sense. In the end, we Europeans have said "let's have the countryside for walking and let others do the feeding and we are not even going to ask how they do it." This is perplexing, because we restrict ourselves with conditions that are fine, but we do not make the same demands on imports.

And how did we get here?

When we go out to the countryside, as the urban society that we are and did not have lived there, we are bothered by irrigation systems, farms, greenhouses... We want the countryside, but for something else. That's why I started to think about the idea of the countryside revenge. Only when the shopping trolley starts to get tighter, which will continue to rise little by little, then we will realise that we must also have agricultural production in Europe. We are all collaborating in pushing up food prices to make it a privilege for the rich. And not as something accessible to the middle and working classes.

If the countryside had had a good communications lobby, would this situation have been avoided?

Nobody is perfect, but when your product is not worth anything, as in the case of food, these things happen. Between 2000 and 2020, thanks to globalisation and new agricultural techniques, European food was the cheapest in its history. Food did not appear in any of the concern surveys. If you don't value food, you value those who produce it even less. Farmers become invisible. Meanwhile, urban society increasingly values the environment, and this is very positive, but forgets about food production. All the rules we have made in Europe limit us and restrict our capacity. Of course, the farmers were protesting, but because we were not pressed for food, we didn't listen to them. In that circumstance, even if they had communicated very well, it would have been invisible to us. That's why I started to coin the concept of the countryside revenge. They are only going to become visible when the shopping trolley gets too tight. And it is starting to happen.

Is there a confrontation between agriculture and environmental care?

In European society’s imagination, any greenhouse, any irrigation system or any farm is an aggression to the environment or animal abuse, and therefore we are going to try to limit it with our rules. We are forgetting a very important variable here: the right to a varied, healthy and reasonably priced European food supply. It is perfectly possible to achieve sustainable agricultural production with a balance. My thesis here is that the community agricultural policy, which is the most important policy in the EU, has so far only had the focus on sustainability, which must be maintained because it is essential, but it must also be balanced with the right of Europeans to a varied, healthy and reasonably priced food supply. Farmers are part of the solution, not part of the problem. If we carry on as we are doing now, and although we are at a time of de-globalisation, we are handing over the key to our food supply to third countries, we will continue to pay more and more for our food. If we do not achieve this balance between the environment and agriculture, we will regret it. It is very difficult, but we must not give up. We only accept the good farmer, the one with four little goats and four little trees. If we had to live with that model of agriculture, every pear or every apple would cost us a thousand euros. Only the rich would take that apple.

And that's where the extreme right comes in to try to catch people with their climate change denialist discourse.

I think these protests by farmers have been much more profound. It is a world that does not want to die and is crying out in desperation. And it has done so in countries with governments on the left and on the right. It is an apolitical, profound cry from a whole sector. But it would be just as suicidal to forget about the sustainability of natural systems as of the countryside.

It speaks of the paradox of wanting varied and cheap food while imposing rules and laws that make this difficult. Added to this is the contradiction of wanting to consume products on a massive scale that may not be appropriate for our agriculture, such as the avocado, which requires a lot of irrigation. What is wrong with us as a society that we do not see this paradox?

The avocado is an irrigated crop that in many areas is totally sustainable. In the coastal areas of Malaga and Granada, custard apples and oranges used to be grown, which are also irrigated.

You complain that there is a double standard with regard to energy issues and irrigation, that the environmental impact of photovoltaic plantations or hydrogen gas pipeline installations is not taken into account: then these problems are seen in water transfers or irrigation plans.

Yes, this is so deeply embedded that it is very curious. If there is anything that pollutes the environment visually, it is a windmill, and if there is anything that pollutes the soil, it is a photovoltaic plant. And yet society sees it as something more sustainable than a crop of pear trees. And all because we have demonised the farmer and put the renewable energy technician on a pedestal. We have to choose, as a country, but we have to know the consequences. The ecological flow has to be maintained, but we are throwing a lot of hectares into the sea. The population continues to grow, fertile land is becoming less and less every day because urban infrastructure, schools, hospitals, photovoltaic shopping centres eat up thousands and thousands of hectares of fertile land every year. So there is less and less land and more and more people to feed. And to feed more people with less land, you have to irrigate. We have to decide whether we want to irrigate and produce or keep the prices of fruit and vegetables rising.

And here we come to water consumption: we have seen it with the irrigation of Doñana, in others it is industrial production or urban or tourist use, and all this in a context of drought and less rainfall. Is water use the big problem that is not being addressed in Spain?

There are countries that have less rainfall than Spain, such as Israel, but have much more irrigated land. Rainfall averages have not changed in recent years. There may be more or less concentrated rainfall, but the same amount of water falls. The nonsense is that there are areas without drinking water in Andalusia or Catalonia when they have plenty of water and all because people do not want to lay a pipe from the reservoir to their house. And meanwhile we accept regasification plants, extremely high pressure hydrogen pipelines from Algeciras to the Pyrenees, with a branch to Lisbon and crossing natural parks. But that is what we have decided. The year it rains we will have water and the year it doesn't rain, there will be nothing.

You talk about all food coming from the countryside, what about 3D food printing or food synthesis in laboratories that is still a long way off, although it is the great promise, as we are told, will put an end to hunger in the world. Can we trust it?

I believe that society has to be open to any kind of innovation. Any innovation that improves the quantity and quality of food is welcome. But what I know is done now is far from being affordable and sustainable.

During the pandemic, we suddenly discovered that moving industrial production to Asia is costing Europe dearly. Is the same thing happening to us with food?

That is what is happening to us. In Europe we are making our own agricultural production more expensive, restricting and limiting it, and that is why farmers have said "enough is enough". We have decided that the European countryside is for strolling and that food is a nuisance and that it should be produced by others and we will not look too closely at how they do it. This is surreal, but this is what is happening and I don't think it will change in the short term. I personally believe that a lot can be done with new farming techniques and the environment can be improved with more production. I am an optimist and I believe that there is plenty of land left. We are in a change of cycle, as has already happened with energy; and Europe, with a world at war, is going to change some of its policies. The problem is that it is going to take a long time to get there and first the shopping trolley has to be put at 500 euros so that people start to value having production in Europe.

See, «Si no conseguimos el equilibrio entre medio ambiente y agricultura, nos arrepentiremos»