DALIAS, Spain, July 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – “They work for me night and day,”
smiles Antonio Zamora, standing in his greenhouse. His minuscule employees
are bugs that feed on the parasites threatening his peppers.
Zamora, like most of his colleagues, no longer sprays his crops with
pesticides, instead hanging small bags of mites on the plants, leaving them
to attack parasites while sparing his produce.
He owns two hectares (five acres) in the so-called “Sea of Plastic”, some
30,000 hectares of greenhouses in southeastern Spain’s Almeria province,
where much of Europe’s fruits and vegetables are grown.
The sparkling mosaic of white plastic bordering the Mediterranean — which
is visible from space — produces tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers
and aubergines all year round to supply Europe’s supermarkets.
Last year 2.5 million tonnes of produce was exported from Almeria, half of
Spain’s total vegetable exports.
Like Zamora, virtually all pepper growers in Almeria have replaced
insecticides with so-called “biological control” using insects.
About 60 percent of tomato growers have done the same, along with a quarter
of courgette producers, according to the producers’ association Coexphal.
Consumption of insecticides in Almeria — where agriculture employs some
120,000 people and accounts for 20 percent of economic output — has dropped
by 40 percent since 2007, according to local authorities.
– A trillion insects –
The use of insecticides surged in the 1960s, but farmers have adopted new
methods under pressure from consumer groups as well as the fact that their
crops have become increasingly resistant to the chemicals.
“We have had to change course. The use of pesticides became excessive,”
said Jan van der Blom, an expert in biocontrol at Coexphal.
Encarnacion Samblas of environmental group Ecologists in Action described
the change as a “very positive step”.
“In many cases the reduction in the use of chemical products has been
drastic, and the substances that are still in use are softer,” she said.
French agricultural cooperative InVivo, which has yearly sales of 5.5
billion euros ($6.2 billion), recently opened a “biofactory”, Bioline Iberia,
in the heart of the Sea of Plastic.
Inside hermetically closed rooms with tightly controlled temperature and
humidity levels, employees raise four species of mites to be sold in the
region as well as in Portugal and Morocco.
The company projects production of a trillion insects this year.
Several other factories of the same type have sprung up in recent years
around the Sea of Plastic, and roughly 30 firms sell insects, at steadily
decreasing prices.
“Spain can be considered the largest area in Europe and perhaps the world
in terms of the use of biological control,” said Bioline Iberia director
Federico Garcia.
– Chemicals still prevalent –
But the road to truly green farming remains long, said Samblas of
Ecologists in Action, noting that many farmers still use fungicides and
various other substances to disinfect soils.
“Farmers continue to use chemicals in a not very rational way, because they
are recommended, they are sold to them. Often they use them as a routine,
without really knowing why,” she said.
Even “organic” greenhouses — with 2,000 hectares certified as such or
seeking the label — often pay little heed to biodiversity or fail to take
proper care of the soil, the ecologist said.
She noted that European regulations on these issues are lacking.
An increase in the amount of land used for farming has put pressure on
water resources in an arid region, Samblas added.
Agronomist Jose Manuel Torres warned that year-round farming methods favour
the growth of parasites, arguing that the region should halt production
during the summer.
Samblas noted another problem: old greenhouse plastics often find their way
into the Mediterranean.