We weren’t really sure what to write about our next stop near Los Albaricoques. This was our overnight point leaving the coast and heading towards the Sierra Nevada.
As we drove towards it, the landscape flattened out into a massive plain. A plain blanketed with enormous plastic greenhouses. Viewing it on satelite images, you can see the whole area is white with its quoted >26,000 hectares of greenhouses.
The greenhouses are wooden or metal posts covered in plastic polythene, which creates the right atmosphere for speedy growing and early harvest.
This fruit and veg is where most of Europes supplies come from, so in all likelihood, when you buy your Spanish grown salad and veg from the supermarket/greengrocers, it probably made its way to you from here.
Labourers in the greenhouses are generally migrants, who wait each day to see if they might get lucky with some work. We drove past some of their ‘homes’, plastic clad shacks they have built right by the greenhouses, presumably to gain better chance of getting work for the day by being on site. It makes for uncomfortable sightseeing.
The farmers are forced to sell their produce at seriously low cost to the stores that sell them on to the public. So they’re also unable to make much profit to be able to pay farm rent or themselves, let alone workers… To top this all off, and add to the climate change debate, info online suggests that the greenhouses are in fact affecting the region, and unlike the rest of the country’s temperature that is rising, this area is cooling down.
I guess it makes us think more about buying local…or being happy to pay more for items that have come in from further afield? It might also make us think a bit next time we’re in the supermarket buying our veg and our only complaint is that some peppers are plastic wrapped 🌶