With heat waves increasingly frequent and prolonged and with tropical nights In places where it did not occur before, farmers have been at the mercy of climate change for a few years now, exposed to Millionaires loses and seeing how production costs (fuels, electricity, fertilizers) do not stop rising. In recent times, in addition, high temperatures have been combined with increasingly violent droughts, storms and hailstorms, which have ruined entire crops. “All forecasts indicate that by 2030, the availability of water in the Mediterranean basin will have been reduced by 20%, and agriculture will have to continue producing food of the same quality and in the same quantity as now… If we do not take urgent measures, we will not arrive,” warns Robert Savé, emeritus researcher at the Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA), an organization dependent on the Generalitat.
All forecasts indicate that by 2030, the availability of water in the Mediterranean basin will have been reduced by 20%
The countryside, which has seen how all this was transferred to the prices paid by the final consumer, has had to react. It has done so, to begin with, by expanding the surface area dedicated to ecological productions, with the consequent savings in fertilizers and chemical treatments that this practice entails. And he has done it too developing new crops or recovering old varieties that had fallen into disuse, more adapted to new climatic conditions. The most innovative example in this case is the Tutti apple, a bicolor fruit resistant to extreme heat, which IRTA researchers have created, in collaboration with producers and companies in the sector.
“We had already been working on new projects for a couple of decades. varieties of apples and pearsbecause we had observed that they had problems with high temperatures,” explains Luis Asín, head of the IRTA Fruit Growing program in Lleida. In view of how climate change is modifying the crop behavior, the research institute launched a long-term program to obtain better-performing varieties. The intense heat waves of recent years, says Asín, “are causing damage to the skin of the fruits and productive stops in the trees, among other problems.”
“For this reason, we work associated with a New Zealand company called Plant & Food Research, which has advised us in the process, to try to produce fruits more adapted to the new climate“continues the agronomist. To the Tutti apple, which also “also adapts to the flavor and texture trends of the consumer”, says Asín, about 50 hectares of land are currently dedicated in Lleida and Girona, adds Joan Bonany, director of the program that has developed the new variety. “We have already had a first harvest of 100,000 kilos, a still small figure to be able to compete in the market, but which has already allowed us to verify that, indeed, The Tutti supports 40 degrees well for several days,” says Bonany.
Organic farming
But while researchers continue to cross crop varieties in laboratories and test fields, many farmers have decided to switch to organic production, as a measure to adapt to the new climate situation. And to, incidentally, reduce production costs. “An example of this trend is the vineyard, which in addition to looking for farms higher above sea levelhas been betting on biological systems to combat pests for a few years now,” says Robert Savé, former viticulture coordinator at IRTA. It is true, Savé admits, that in the case of wine and cavaa key factor has been consumer demand, which has pushed for organic crops.
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But also the organic pistachio has been triggered. And although it is still a minority production, the number of lands now dedicated to this nut has grown by 1,057.6% since 2011, up to 49,534 hectares. Another product in which ‘organic’ production is also gaining ground is oil, which has already been marked by drought for three seasons, which has led farmers to try to save production costs by reducing treatments. The measure, however, has so far had no impact on the final prices of the product, which has risen almost 75% this year.
During the year 2022, the area dedicated to organic production in Spain increased by 1.5%, reaching a total of 2,675,331 hectares. This is equivalent to 11% of the country’s useful agricultural area, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture. With this, Spain is placed among the top 10 producers by area, both in the EU and in the world. “Spain is a key actor to fulfill the agrarian dimension of the European Green Deal and, specifically, to achieve the objective that 25% of the agricultural area is allocated to organic production in 2030,” highlighted Minister Luis Planas at a conference held last September.