Date Published: 23/04/2024

Precious water reserves wasted on lemons that will never be sold

Inequality between small farmers and large industry means water resources are going to waste in drought-threatened Spain

The harvesting season for stone fruits is underway in Murcia, with many local farmers beginning to pick the first varieties of peaches, nectarines and apricots. But an estimated 300 million kilos of lemons will go unharvested in the Region of Murcia, three quarters of the national supply of unused lemons, meaning that the precious water used to grow those crops has essentially gone to waste.

Murcia and the neighbouring province of Almería are sometimes known as ‘the garden of Europe’ for the enormous quantities of fruit and vegetables that are grown here and exported to the rest of Spain and Europe, including most of the continent’s peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and other produce.

This spring, around 300,000 tons of stone fruits are expected to be picked in the Vega Alta del Segura area of Murcia alone, as Miguel Ángel Piñera, president of the COAG agricultural and farming organisation in Cieza, says. “We expect fruit with optimal quality because it has not suffered any major change in temperature that has had an impact on production.”

The COAG president explains that these fruits are just the first to be picked before the later harvest of other varieties of peaches, nectarines and apricots begins in May.

At the same time, though, around 400 million kilograms of lemons will go unharvested in Spain, more than 300 million of which are in the Region of Murcia. This is according to the head of Union of Small Farmers in Murcia (UPA), Antonio Moreno, who pointed out that the majority of those farmers affected are small- and medium-sized growers in Murcia (and to a lesser extent in Málaga) who cannot afford to compete with large industrial agricultural companies when it comes to selling their produce.

Moreno explained that his organisation has asked the government for several measures, such as “the implementation of a rule extension for moments of excess production”. This would eliminate part of the production of lemons, but would force all producers to eliminate the same percentage of their crops. This would mean all farmers, large and small, would be affected the same since the “large exploitations of capital funds have been collected”.

They have also requested greater control over the prices paid for their crops. “If we do a cost study, such as those from the Ministry or the Murcian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development (Imida), which establish that the production cost is between 22 and 25 cents per kilo, we cannot have production contracts of 8 cents per kilo.”

He also insisted that subsidies to create new lemon plantations not be granted until the existing ones are balanced with the needs of the market.

Water crisis

With larger companies pricing small- and medium-sized farmers out of the market when it comes to harvesting and selling their produce, their hard work in growing those fruits goes out the window. But it is also a waste of the water used to irrigate the orchards.

There have already been water restrictions on crop irrigation for farmers in the south of Spain recently due to a lack of rainfall and lower water reserves.

Estimates are that the 400 million kilos of lemons going unharvested in Spain have a ‘water footprint’ of 136 cubic hectometres (hm3). To put that into context, it’s around half of the water supply currently held in Murcia reservoirs, which is about 278hm3.

Of these 136hm3, 62.1hm3 is blue water, that is, water from irrigation from rivers or the Tajo-Segura Transfer pipe that brings water down from central Spain; 58.2hm3 to rainwater; and 16.2hm3 of so-called grey water, that is, water that is contaminated during the production process.

Water is not constantly flowing down to Murcia from the north. Every time more water is released down the Tajo-Segura Transfer pipe it needs to be authorised by a special dispensation. The last two authorised water transfers totalled 54hm3.

Essentially, according to data provided by the Segura Hydrographic Confederation and analysed by Jaime Martínez Valderrama from the University of Alicante and the CSIC Experimental Station for Arid Zones, and Javier Martí Talavera, from the University of Alicante, the amount of water being wasted on growing lemons that will never go to market is the equivalent of almost nine months’ worth of water transfers through the Tajo-Segura Transfer pipe.

The researchers, with their study ‘Atlas of Desertification of Spain’ which is being developed at the University of Alicante thanks to the Biodiversity Foundation and by cross-referencing data from the UNESCO Institute for Water Education and data from the Spanish Water Education Fund, explain what happens to the lemons that are not taken to market.

“The European Union gives subsidies for these discards,” explains Martínez Valderrama. “That is, it covers farmers when the price is too low and these foods are discarded. Some end up in the bin, others are used for animal feed and others for food banks.

“Not all of them are thrown away, but they do not enter the commercial market.”

As well as the water footprint of this discarded fruit, there is the carbon footprint, which amounts to 90,000 tons of CO2.

“Fruit does not usually have much of a carbon footprint compared to other products such as meat,” says Martí Talavera. “This footprint, similar to that of grey water, which is water contaminated by production, refers to the trace of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere.”

The massive CO2 and water footprints of lemons that have not reached the market this year is due, according to the UPA, to “the wave of plantations by large landowners in the last five years, which has led to a situation of oversupply”.

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