Francisco: “No es rentable.”

This is posted as a farm visit, but really it’s a fragment of a conversation had in the road between greenhouses one evening in El Ejido. Thomas and I had set out with the goal of reaching the foothills of the mountains behind the city, which meant a good couple hours walk through the plastic. While photographing an irrigation pond I turned back to see Thomas chatting with someone, I walked back down the road and was introduced to Francisco, a long time grower in El Ejido. Francisco’s operation is a small family run greenhouse of about two hectares, growing eggplant, and peppers.

We’d passed Francisco a few minutes before unloading bags of fertilizer from his truck, but he’d wandered up to chat as a family member is studying journalism, and he was intrigued by the cameras. We explained our project and he was quick to start talking about his experiences. He told us about the growth of the industry over the last 20 years, the time he’s worked in the area. Recently though he’s been having a harder and harder time of it, with his operational costs increasing, and the prices for his produce falling. Beyond the current financial problem in Spain, and the global crisis, he was equally concerned about foreign competition, particularly large Moroccan operations where workers are paid less, and work longer hours.

He also had a lot to say about the Spanish government, none of it particularly good. He felt cut off from any kind of financial assistance, or governmental support. “The Spanish government doesn’t care about farmers.” I asked him if there was any sort of subsidies he could apply for, but if there was he wasn’t aware of them. All of his financing was through bank loans, and from personal and family investment.

We talked for a little longer and then we got to the heart of the conversation. “I have a 10 year old son, and there’s no way I want him to take over this farm.” Francisco is well entrenched in a very industrial means of producing food, and for a lot of people the way he works is a problem. That said, it’s still a family operation, and he’s very earnest about what he’s doing, and has dedicated his entire working life to it. During our conversation he spoke about wanting to upgrade to a more ecological means of production, get rid of the plastic, install a more modern greenhouse, use less chemicals – but couldn’t for the associated costs. He bought into a system that 20 years ago was considered a sure thing, and the future of growing food, and it’s all fallen down in pieces around him.

Francisco is very much part of the crisis facing small farmers today, regardless of his type of operation. Rising costs, unfair market prices, corporate competition, and lack of support are doing farmers like Francisco in. There are many, many greenhouses for sale in the area, and what will things look like if/when larger, more industrial operations begin buying up these plots, operations run by folks who aren’t as thoughtful as Francisco? If El Ejido has to exist I’d rather it be run by local people worried about their children’s future than by corporations concerned only with profit.

I don’t believe that industrial agriculture on the scale of El Ejido is the right way to grow food, by Francisco’s own account it’s not sustainable, but at the same time I can’t look a man like Francisco in the eye and tell him he’s wrong. El Ejido is definitely bleak, but it could be a much worse.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 17th, 2010. It is filed under Farm Visits, Solidarity and tagged with El Ejido, Farming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.