There is no count of how many large pig farms exist in Spain, nor an official definition.
But there are 3,217 active industrial farms that produce thousands of pigs a year in an intensive industrial-type process: they have 2,000 stalls for fattening pigs weighing more than 30 kilos or more than 750 stalls for breeding sows.
They are the minority of intensive farms in Spanish territory, but they are the ones that generate the most pollutants and therefore have to declare all their emissions.
This is the most important part of a sector that as a whole produces more than 53 million pigs a year (plus another three extensive Iberian pigs) and 60 million cubic meters a year of manure, which would occupy an area equivalent to the center from Madrid.
The morale
60 million m3
of slurry
vegetable
7,700m
Aravaca
Saint Blaise
Canillejas
Almond
central
House of
Country
MADRID
Vicalvaro
M-30
The intensive pig industry generates more than 60 million cubic meters of manure per year.
They would form a pool with a side length of 7.7 kilometers and a depth of 1 meter: an area as wide as the entire center of Madrid.
The morale
60 million m3
of slurry
7,700m
decks
Aravaca
Almond
central
Saint Blaise
Canillejas
House of
Country
MADRID
Vicalvaro
M-30
Latin
Usera
The intensive pig industry generates more than 60 million cubic meters of manure per year.
They would form a pool with a side length of 7.7 kilometers and a depth of 1 meter: an area as wide as the entire center of Madrid.
60 million m3
of slurry
vegetable
7,700m
Aravaca
Almond
central
Saint Blaise
Canillejas
House of
Country
MADRID
Park of
Retirement
Vicalvaro
M-30
Aluche
St Eugenie
Usera
The intensive pig industry generates more than 60 million cubic meters of manure per year.
They would form a pool with a side length of 7.7 kilometers and a depth of 1 meter: an area as wide as the entire center of Madrid.
This model, put in the spotlight after the controversy over the words of Minister Alberto Garzón, arouses more and more misgivings in Europe, and not only among environmental and animal groups. In France, 82% of the population is in favor of ending livestock farming and the industrial breeding of animals for human consumption, according to a recent survey by the Ifop institute. A few days ago, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, recognized the "problem" posed by these large farms and pointed out that Brussels wants to promote small ones. Some countries, like the Netherlands, already subsidize the voluntary closure of pig farms and others, like Germany, are reducing their number of heads.
In Spain, 78% of the more than 80,000 pig farms that exist are intensive: the animals are herded indoors to guarantee shorter production times and costs (the extensive ones, on the other hand, are mostly outdoors and take advantage of the grasses from nearby land). Not all of them can be considered macro farms, because only those 3,200 mentioned above can house thousands of fattening pigs. But the data from the Ministry of Agriculture, referring to 2020, indicate that the largest farms do not stop growing. The smallest ones have been drastically reduced over the last decade, about 30%, while the largest ones (known as group 3 farms, that is, macro farms) have increased by 49% in the same period.
Not only are there pigs, but pigs represent more than half of all that is raised in Spain.
The evolution of the number of these animals goes hand in hand with meat production, which in the last five years has grown by 15% while in the EU it has decreased by 5%.
With five million tons, Spain is already the fourth largest producer of pork in the world, only behind two huge countries, China (42 million tons) and the United States (12.8 million), and very close to Germany (5.1), which doubles it in population.
In fact, since 2015 Spain has raised more pigs than Germany: if in 2020 the Germans reduced their census by 3%, the Spanish increased it by 4.5%.
59% of the pork produced here is exported.
2.4 meters
Sow
farrowing
cage
gestation
A shed for gestating sows, like the one at the Casa Carretero macro-farm in Mula, can house more than 2,000 caged sows.
This farm is the one that declares the most animal faeces as waste.
gestation ship
Slurry
In another shed for fattening pigs, like the ones that can be seen in the Puebla de Don Fadrique macro-farm (Granada), up to 15,000 fattening pigs can live.
bait ship
Slurry
Raft
of slurry
Normally, these types of facilities have several ships.
In the Dehesa del Rey macro-farm (Granada), for example, there are 10 nuclei with up to 70 buildings, with which this gigantic facility is capable of producing 500,000 pigs in a year.
Dehesa del Rey Farm (Granada)
bait ships,
farrowing and
suckling pigs
slurry rafts
google maps
2.4 meters
Sow
farrowing
cage
gestation
A shed for gestating sows, like the one at the Casa Carretero macro-farm in Mula, can house more than 2,000 caged sows.
This farm is the one that declares the most animal faeces as waste.
gestation ship
Slurry
In another shed for fattening pigs, like the ones that can be seen in the Puebla de Don Fadrique macro-farm (Granada), up to 15,000 fattening pigs can live.
bait ship
Slurry
Raft
of slurry
Normally, these types of facilities have several ships.
In the Dehesa del Rey macro-farm (Granada), for example, there are 10 nuclei with up to 70 buildings, with which this gigantic facility is capable of producing 500,000 pigs in a year.
Dehesa del Rey Farm (Granada)
bait ships,
farrowing and
suckling pigs
slurry rafts
google maps
A shed for gestating sows, like the one at the Casa Carretero macro-farm in Mula, can house more than 2,000 caged sows.
This farm is the one that declares the most animal faeces as waste.
In Spain there are thousands of ships like this.
2.4 meters
Sow
farrowing
cage
gestation
gestation ship
Slurry
In another shed for fattening pigs, like the ones that can be seen in the Puebla de Don Fadrique macro-farm (Granada), up to 15,000 fattening pigs can live.
bait ship
Slurry
Raft
of slurry
Normally, these types of facilities have several ships.
In the Dehesa del Rey macro-farm (Granada), for example, there are 10 nuclei with up to 70 buildings, with which this gigantic facility is capable of producing 500,000 pigs in a year.
Dehesa del Rey Farm (Granada)
bait ships,
farrowing and
suckling pigs
slurry rafts
google maps
These industrial-type facilities generate a lot of pollution.
The aforementioned Dehesa del Rey macro-farm is the one that emits the most methane, according to the information it declares to the Ministry of Ecological Transition: 561,000 kilos in 2020, in addition to 228,000 kilos of ammonia, 1,820 kilos of nitrous oxide and another ten tons of hazardous waste.
In a year, an installation like this can produce at least half a million cubic meters of manure.
Fernando Suárez, an agronomist expert in waste and a researcher at the New Water Culture Foundation, explains that slurry has two fundamental pollution problems: “On the one hand, methane emissions into the atmosphere;
on the other, those of nitrogen, which at the beginning is in the form of ammonia and is very volatile”.
Farmers have to submit a manure management plan and include the farms where they are going to dump the slurry generated by their animals.
But transporting them is very expensive — they have a liquid part and are very heavy — and it is normal to dump them as close as possible, saturating and contaminating the area's aquifers.
When the slurry is applied to the soil, explains Suárez, the bacteria convert the ammonia into nitrates: "If there are plants at that time, they absorb it, but if there are not, the nitrates filter into the aquifers and contaminate them."
Before being distributed on nearby land, the slurry accumulates in large ponds located next to the macro-farms.
These huge pools often fail to prevent seepage of waste that pollutes the ground and aquifers.
As an example of the extent to which these leaks occur, a technical team from the Ministry of Agriculture traveled to Campo de Cartagena three years ago to inspect several slurry ponds near the Mar Menor and found that more than 90% did not meet the standards of construction.
This situation produces a risk of leaks and constant losses due to overflow, indicates the document Analysis of solutions for zero discharge into the Mar Menor from Campo de Cartagena, which was made public in 2019.
This is how they contaminate the purines
"The sector has never wanted to assume the environmental risks it produces," complains Suárez, who has worked as an advisor on waste treatment and water purification. The Interporc employers' association, on the other hand, defends that slurry "is a by-product with an important agronomic utility" as a fertilizer that "generates a circular economy cycle", since it replaces chemical fertilizer.
In the period 2016-2019, the average amount of nitrates present in groundwater in Spain has increased by 51.5%.
"And this despite having increased the area included within the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (ZVN), which is the instrument of public administrations to curb nitrate pollution," says a Greenpeace work on macro-farms published in October last year.
The ZVN already occupy four million hectares, 24% of the total state area.
In the last ten years, 75% of the Spanish groundwater bodies have increased their contamination by nitrates.
El Ministerio de Transición Ecológica estima que un 22% de las masas de agua superficial y un 23% de las subterráneas están afectadas por este problema. “Muchos pueblos de Cataluña y Aragón ya no pueden beber agua del grifo por culpa de las macrogranjas”, denuncia Inma Lozano, portavoz de la plataforma Stop Macrogranjas en Castilla-La Mancha.
Es algo que ocurre también en algunas zonas de Cataluña donde hay niveles de nitratos que quintuplican los permitidos: si el límite son 50 miligramos por litro (mg/l), en algunas fuentes concretas de la provincia de Barcelona se han detectado más de 250 mg/l, como en Manlleu, o más de 500 mg/l, como en Santa Cecilia de Voltregà. A raíz de estos datos y de años de protestas vecinales, la Generalitat sacó adelante el pasado julio una moratoria a la creación de nuevas macrogranjas en 68 municipios. Los ministerios de Transición Ecológica y Agricultura aprobaron hace unos días un decreto sobre nitratos que incrementará un 50% la superficie de las zonas protegidas frente a este tipo de contaminación, así como las estaciones de control y la frecuencia de los muestreos.
Emisiones de óxido nitroso
en las granjas españolas
Zonas vulnerables a contaminación
por nitratos
Gallinas Mainar
12.480 kg al año
Guzmán Pastor Sandín
es la empresa que más
óxido nitroso emite a la
atmósfera: 41.500 kg al año
Gallinas Puebla de
Valverde
6600 kg al año
200 km
Emisiones de óxido nitroso
en las granjas españolas
Zonas vulnerables a contaminación
por nitratos
Tamarite de Litera
6161 kg al año
Gallinas Mainar
12.480 kg al año
Guzmán Pastor Sandín
es la empresa que más
óxido nitroso emite a la
atmósfera: 41.500 kg al año
Gallinas Puebla de
Valverde
6600 kg al año
Finca La Capitana
2570 kg al año
150 km
Emisiones de óxido nitroso en las granjas españolas
Zonas vulnerables a contaminación por nitratos
Castiello de Jaca
3600 kg al año
Tamarite de Litera
6161 kg al año
Guzmán Pastor Sandín
es la empresa que más
óxido nitroso emite a la
atmósfera: 41.500 kg al año
Gallinas Mainar
12.480 kg al año
Gallinas Puebla de
Valverde
6600 kg al año
Finca La Capitana
2570 kg al año
150 km
Emisiones de óxido nitroso en las granjas españolas
Zonas vulnerables a contaminación por nitratos
Castiello de Jaca
3600 kg al año
GUZMÁN PASTOR SANDÍN
es la empresa que más
óxido nitroso emite a la atmósfera:
41.500 kg al año
Tamarite de Litera
6161 kg al año
GALLINAS MAINAR
12.480 kg al año
GALLINAS PUEBLA
DE VALVERDE
6600 kg al año
zona vulnerable
zona vulnerable
Finca La Capitana
2570 kg al año
180 km
Emisiones de Metano (CH4)
Emisiones de Amoniaco (NH3)
Cerdos Sena
134.375 kg/año
Gallinas Mainar
156.000 kg/año
Granja Madax
289.645 kg/año
Finca Millán
306.000 kg/año
Finca Dehesa
del Rey
561.000 kg/año
Finca Dehesa
del Rey
228.000 kg/año
La contaminación del suelo y las aguas, así como los malos olores que generan estas instalaciones, están soliviantando a muchos pueblos pequeños de la España vacía. Los vecinos han creado varias plataformas contra la ganadería industrial y organizado numerosas manifestaciones por pueblos y ciudades. Javier Moreno, portavoz de la ONG Igualdad Animal, incide en los problemas de contaminación: “España se está convirtiendo en el estercolero de Europa, los países dejan de producir cerdos por sus altos costes ambientales y se los compran a España”.
Mientras, las organizaciones ecologistas piden replantear cómo tratamos a estos animales, con los que acabamos de conocer que hasta podemos compartir órganos como el corazón o los riñones. La primatóloga Jane Goodall lo resume así: “Las macrogranjas son increíblemente crueles. Cada animal es un ser individual que siente miedo”.
El Ministerio de Transición Ecológica no se plantea aprobar una moratoria sobre macrogranjas porcinas. “Es competencia de las comunidades autónomas”, señala un portavoz. Podemos llevó al Congreso una iniciativa para prohibir estas instalaciones intensivas en zonas vulnerables, que fue rechazada en diciembre por PSOE, PP y Vox. Cuatro comunidades (Castilla-La Mancha, Aragón, Cataluña y Navarra) prohíben o limitan ya la construcción de nuevas explotaciones de ganadería intensiva. El sector, por su parte, defiende que da empleo a 400.000 familias de forma directa e indirecta, que ayuda a evitar la despoblación y que las exportaciones mejoran la balanza comercial española.
Fuentes
Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Ecological Transition, Interprofesional del Porcino de Capa Blanca (Interporc), Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua, Animal Equality, Greenpeace, Our World in Data.