In the rural regions there are growing protests against large breeding farms, which are increasingly displacing traditional farmers – a minister has now criticized industrial pig fattening.
Spain produces three times as much pork as the population consumes.
Mila Herreros is concerned about the future of her hometown Cardenete in the central province of Cuenca. The place has just under 500 inhabitants, but it is surrounded by several industrial pig farms in which 15,000 animals are fattened or used for piglet production. “In 2016, the fattening farms were classified by our regional government of Castile-La Mancha as a strategic sector, now we have several such farms here, one is only a kilometer from the town center,” says Herreros and wrinkles his nose. Herreros is sitting in the town hall for the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and is now trying to prevent the establishment of another farm, on which 58,000 piglets are to be produced annually. The socialist mayor, on the other hand, vehemently defends the project because he hopes it will generate funding and investments for his village.
What at first glance looks like a provincial farce has now become a political issue. Spain’s Consumption Minister Alberto Garzón from the left-wing party Unidas Podemos (UP) said in an interview with the British daily “The Guardian” at Christmas that poor quality meat from abused animals was being exported from industrial fattening stalls. This also has a bad impact on the environment in one’s own country. The storm was perfect, and since then there has been bitter fighting across party lines across the country. The Partido Popular and the right-wing liberal civic party Ciudadanos even demanded the resignation of the minister. But even the socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who with his minority government is dependent on UP as a coalition partner, distanced himself from his minister. Government spokeswoman Isabel Rodríguez said that he only gave his personal opinion.
More pigs than residents
The scolded minister finds support from the agricultural unions, which represent small family businesses, as well as from animal rights activists. In the last few years 50 percent of the once 32,000 small family businesses have closed. But the large farms, of which there are now more than 2000, are nowhere near generating the hoped-for number of jobs, as the feeding and cleaning processes in the mega stables are largely automated. Furthermore, many young people are moving away from the rural regions of Spain because they have no career prospects. According to the environmental protection organization Ecologistas en Acción, rural exodus is particularly strong in the regions where fattening farms have settled, especially in Huesca and Soria.
Nevertheless, many regional princes in the structurally weak regions of the country still think like the mayor of Cardenete. In the last few years you have mostly given the macro farms without hesitation permits. Spain, where around 58 million pigs were slaughtered in 2020, is now the fourth largest pig farmer in the world after China, the USA and Germany. There are even more pigs in this country than residents. In the meantime, three times as much meat is produced here as the population consumes, and the vast majority is exported.
In Cardenete, however, Mila Herreros continues to fight. The new farm would be in the immediate vicinity of the village and would border a nature reserve through which the Cabriel, one of the cleanest rivers in Europe, flows. “The quality of our groundwater is at risk,” Herreros complained to the Spanish news portal Eldiario.es. The existing farms are already spraying five million liters of liquid manure on the fields around their village.
EU sues Spain
Cardenete is not alone with his problems. Last year the health authorities objected to the water quality of 70 towns in Spain because the nitrate concentration in drinking water was above the limit values. This has meanwhile also called on the EU. As early as 2018, she stated that 46 percent of Spanish waters were endangered by nitrates from agriculture. After an ultimatum had expired, the Commission decided last December to refer Spain to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to implement the Nitrates Directive. But the Spanish politicians and the agricultural industry are unimpressed. The socialist state government of Extremadura now wants to start a campaign abroad in favor of the regional meat industry in the coming days.