Spanish strawberries are very popular – mainly because they are cheap. But the environmental price is high. An online campaign is now calling on German supermarkets to stop offering the products.
Spanish strawberries are delicious. At least if you buy them in Spain. In Madrid they are only 500 kilometers away, to Frankfurt am Main they cover almost 2500 kilometers on the autobahn – you have to experience it yourself. By then, the carbon footprint will of course be several figures larger.
But in Germany, the red berries—botanically they are actually so-called aggregate nuts—are just ripening. If you want strawberries early, you can get them from the world’s largest exporter: Spain. 85,000 tons of Spanish strawberries make the trek every year. If the online campaign is successful, it won’t be anytime soon.
Much of the Doñana wetlands are threatened with drying up. Only the ditches and some of the formerly numerous lagoons still have some water.
WWF: 2,000 hectares of plantations without permission
In Spain, the Doñana World Heritage Site is drying up, according to the campaign. “But the strawberry industry draws more water from illegal sources in this centuries-old national park,” it said.
However, Coto Doñana National Park itself does not have strawberry fields, nor does it have any illegal water wells. However, around the national park there is a landscape reserve known as the Nature Park. There are also strawberry fields, whose water requirements are a problem for Coto Doñana’s wetlands. According to WWF, about 2,000 hectares are unlicensed “wild” plantations, accounting for a quarter of the planted area. It is estimated that as many as 1,000 illegal wells are draining groundwater reserves.
“We have to stop the criminals,” said WWF’s Felipe Fuentelsaz, “because farmers who obey the rules are also affected by illegal tap water.”
Andalusia wants retroactive approval of oil wells
But the regional government of Andalusia even wanted to expand the acreage, and subsequently approved a series of illegal wells. There is nothing the central government can do to stop this. There is even a European Court of Justice judgment requiring Spain to do more to protect national parks and water supplies.
When German lawmakers from the environment committee wanted to know more about illegal wells as part of an exchange of information, there was a frenzy in the Spanish media. Online petitions and trips by MPs – According to business journalist Fatima Iglesias on public television, this is a campaign against Spanish strawberries, where the fruit costs three times as much in Germany. According to the journalist, parts of the Spanish government want to take advantage of allegations against Andalusia over the presence of illegal wells during the election campaign.
Strawberry producers: “Irrigation is absolutely environmentally friendly”
In the end, German MPs temporarily canceled their trip to Coto Doñana because of campaigning problems ahead of the new elections. Why? asked José Luis García-Palacios of the Strawberry Producers Association, who would love to show them everything. “We treat every drop of water more efficiently than any other strawberry producer in the world. Our drip irrigation is absolutely eco-friendly.”
The originators of the Internet boycott call are not convinced. Andalusia should no longer supply cheap berries to Europe without regard for the environment. They want to ban sales. That didn’t leave Spanish strawberry officials indifferent in the first place. In Spain, production runs from late December to mid-June – so the season is effectively over.