The province that produces the most avocados and mangoes in Europe seeks water

A worker picks avocados on a farm in Vélez-Málaga.Garcia-Santos / El Pais

Fifty trees.

The first time that the statistical yearbook of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food records the presence of avocados in Malaga is in 1943. At that time they produced 10 metric quintals - 1,000 kilos - a year and the production was valued at 1,500 pesetas.

Today, the province of Malaga accumulates around 1.5 million trees in almost 7,000 hectares that produce more than 82,000 tons per year.

Its turnover is around 200 million euros.

The region of Axarquía, to the east, accumulates the vast majority of this crop not only on a local scale, but also on a national scale - there are 12,161 hectares in Spain - and in Europe - there are barely 1,500 hectares in Portugal and just over 200 in Sicily.

Its profitability has made the area of ​​avocados continue to expand, such as mango, of which Malaga is also the main European producer.

Both crops, yes, have found a ceiling: water.

The subtropical climate of this area is too dry for them.

And although the water resources impounded have increased in recent decades, they are not enough.

"The deficit is structural," says Miguel Gutiérrez, secretary of the Spanish Tropical Association, which brings together half a thousand producers.

Its headquarters are in Vélez-Málaga, the capital of a region where avocado and mango have made the traditional vegetable garden disappear and the vineyards and sugar cane have been completely forgotten.

Its hills have changed their curved profiles for steps to allow terrace plantings.

There are subtropical crops in other parts of Spain, especially in neighboring Granada - also Huelva, Cádiz, Almería, the Canary Islands, the Valencia Community or the Balearic Islands - but in no case do they monopolize the countryside as much as in the Axarquía.

"Perhaps we have moved on, but most are smallholdings that have allowed the region to survive," says José Campos, president of the central board of users of the South of Guaro.

He blames more those who have reached the slipstream of the success of the subtropical - a kilo of avocado has been paid to the farmer at three euros - speculating with large farms and planting trees before even having water.

A walk on the Internet serves to find small farms of half a hectare (5,000 meters) for almost 100,000 euros under the claim of these fruits.

"Perhaps we have passed, but most are smallholdings that have allowed the region to survive," says José Campos, president of the central board of users of the South of Guaro

With beautiful views of the Maroma mountain, the Axarquía has the largest reservoir in the province of Malaga, just where the irrigation water for the subtropics comes from.

It is the La Viñuela reservoir, which can hold 165.43 cubic hectometres.

The problem is that it is 27.03% of its capacity and that human consumption in the area also depends on it.

That is why farmers are concerned as their concessions decrease year by year.

"The situation is already unsustainable," says Rafael Yus, spokesman for Ecologistas en Acción and coordinator of a recent publication of more than 600 pages entitled

.

In it, the water deficit caused by these plantations, which consume most of the water in the region, is revealed.

The Hydrological Plan of the Junta de Andalucía points to a consumption of 86 cubic hectometres per year, but already in 2017 the figure rose to more than 100. "The deficit is corrected by taking water from the reservoir the following year, but that cannot always be done, is limited.

Even more so with the current drought, ”says Yus.

Less water availability

Each hectare of avocado needs about 7,000 cubic meters of water per year, 5,500 in the case of mango, according to specialists.

Farmers have a concession for the recently inaugurated hydrological year of 3,000 cubic meters per hectare, a figure well below previous seasons and which may be even lower if the drought persists, since the figure is reviewable because human consumption has priority.

The rest is supplied with wells, groundwater or rain, which in Malaga is scarce.

"It rains less and less", underlines Miguel Gutiérrez, although the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) does not confirm his thesis.

Since the 1960s, the average annual rainfall in Torrox - the epicenter of subtropical cultivation - is 438 liters per year and in the last 15 years they have fallen 441.2 on average.

Of course, as they emphasize in the Aemet, "the rise in temperatures due to the effect of climate change produces a much more intense evaporatranspiration and, consequently, less water availability".

Many farmers have the option of supplementing their irrigation with licensed wells.

There are also those who take unauthorized surveys or even illegal hookups.

There are complaints.

"The problem is that finding them is very complex," explain sources from the Civil Guard.

The central board of irrigators is committed to improving the storage of runoff water, pumping the groundwater that circulates in times of rain and creating rafts that accumulate what falls from the sky.

"In Almería, Murcia or Valencia there are rafts everywhere, here there is no such tradition and we must establish it", says José Campos.

According to the Manifesto for water on the coast of Malaga and Granada signed by Javier Braun, president of the Spanish Tropical Association, together with a score of companies and associations, “it is necessary and urgent to equip all our treatment plants with effective tertiary systems that allow irrigation with these regenerated waters immediately ”.

An alternative well seen by ecologists and that would make it possible to correct the water deficit: taking advantage of all the reclaimed water in the region, 15 cubic hectometres per year could be incorporated into the system.

However, there is only one small-scale trial, successfully developed by one of the largest companies in the area, Trops.

Farmers are more ambitious: they ask to connect all Andalusian basins so that they can exchange water reciprocally with priority to human consumption and, later, to agriculture.

The sector draws a long pipeline project, but for now it claims to settle for two actions.

One, the diversion of water from the La Concepción reservoir -which supplies the city of Malaga and usually has surpluses- to Axarquía, a work already awarded by the Junta de Andalucía for 1.4 million euros and whose operation was announced for next summer.

The second, the execution of the irrigation pipes of the Béznar and Rules reservoirs, just 50 kilometers in a straight line from this region.

They drink from the Guadalfeo River, which feeds on the melting of the Sierra Nevada and the groundwater of the southern basin of the mountain system.

They have a total capacity of 163 cubic hectometres, which supply about 100,000 people - the population of Motril, Salobreña and Almuñécar - but also the crops of the Costa Tropical of Granada, which has 2,647 hectares of avocado, 370 of mango and 2,900 of custard apple.

The use is made thanks to an old system of ditches, hence the Andalusian Administration emphasizes that "much more water could be used with a good pipeline system" and urges the state to carry out this work, declared of general interest, although the Central government has not included it in its budgets for next year.

For their part, environmentalists consider it a priority to contain the growth of these crops that they claim are disfiguring the traditional landscape of the area.

"If we want that of the subtropics to continue to be an important income sector, we must stop and let the Junta de Andalucía get wet saying that it cannot continue to grow without meaning", Yus emphasizes, who does not believe that the solution is simply to achieve more water.

"The main problem is the unsustainability of the system," highlights the spokesperson for Ecologistas en Acción, who does not share the views of farmers.

"Their solution is always to bring more water," he says.

However, for Yus, it is necessary to adjust to the available water resources and carry out inspections to control illegal hooking.

In addition, his report on the subtropical sector proposes as alternatives the use of reclaimed water, increased irrigation efficiency, the use of less demanding varieties of water, the technique of deficit irrigation and, only in very serious situations, the marine desalination.

"The best strategy is to increase productivity"

Science studies formulas to increase the production of subtropical fruits without having to occupy more surface.

"The best strategy to reduce the water footprint is to increase productivity per hectare, since we get more kilos of fruit with the same water intake", explains Iñaki Hormaza, research professor at the Higher Council for Scientific Research and head of the Department of Fruit Growing Subtropical and Mediterranean of the Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Hortofruticulture (HSM) La Mayora, located in the town of Algarrobo, in the heart of the Axarquía.

There they work in several lines, among them, the study of the genes of the fruit associated with lower water requirements.

In the shorter term, based on their analyzes, the researchers conclude that production grows significantly by increasing the diversity of insects to optimize pollination, with proper fertilizer management and with the use of irrigation systems with low flow drippers. .

The trials on their farms have allowed an average productivity of 12 tons per hectare of avocado in the Hass variety - the most widespread nationally and worldwide, despite not being the most productive - which means double the Spanish average.

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