Manifesto: ‘For an agro-ecological and peasant Mallorca!’
45 professional farmers from 25 villages in Mallorca have issued a manifesto for an “agro-ecological and peasant” Mallorca:
– Because if it doesn’t rain and we don’t have help NOW, we might not be there when it rains again. It becomes unbearable to see how water is poured into golf courses, hotels, cruise ships, airports, lawns and huge swimming pools while the purified water goes into the sea. Farmers, however, will be the first to suffer restrictions, despite not representing even 10% of total consumption. Where are the sewage treatment plants, irrigation ponds and pipelines promised decades ago?
– Because production costs have skyrocketed and we can’t pass them on to consumers like nothing. Many people can’t buy local products, they don’t know or can’t find them. These costs are borne by the farmers, a burden that forces them to close the farm or make it more precarious.
– Because everything comes from outside. We are losing what little food sovereignty we have left. Just twenty years ago about 50% of what we ate was made here and now it doesn’t even reach 15%. We lose farms, farmers, food, knowledge, varieties, language and culture. We cannot and do not want to fall any lower.
– Because we receive 16 million tourists and most of them return without tasting any local products. It is not acceptable that 99% of hoteliers do not have a single Mallorcan product in their dining rooms, that thousands of bars and restaurants do not offer anything local or that many supermarkets, schools and hospitals only have products from outside.
– Because in Mallorca there are already more real estate companies than farmers. This model razes the countryside, steals our water and land and fills the field with cement, rich foreigners and dogs that attack our sheep. And on top of that they complain about the noise of the woodpeckers.
– Because our rulers promote the massive urbanization of the countryside, which prevents us from accessing land and water and blocks the way for young people who would be the relief we need. We cannot buy or rent land. Without farmers Mallorca will not have local and healthy food.
– Because if it doesn’t rain and it’s hotter, we can’t sow and our animals don’t eat. They seek and cannot find and the price of animal food has skyrocketed or is nowhere to be found, while we see the government paying for new beds and tourism promotion to large hotel chains that earn doubles by carloads.
– Because we import food from the other side of the world with a huge environmental impact, when we can and know how to make it here and in an ecological way. It is necessary to grow in farmers and decrease in cement and tourist places.
– Because the governments we have and have had promote the massive construction of photovoltaic polygons in the little fertile land that remains. They are sold to energy multinationals and given multi-million dollar subsidies from everyone’s taxes. There are rundown or urban places to put these plates. This energy will be of no use if we don’t have flour.
– Because large foreign investment funds buy the estates to develop, make hotels, solar estates, wineries and wineries that are just looking to build and speculate. It is still lacking in producing quality food for the local population. And that’s what the field is for.
– Because the aid promised by the Governments arrives late or does not arrive at all. Some farmers have not yet collected aid granted in 2019. It is not possible for the administration to be so bad paying only with the agricultural sector.
– Because the multinationals monopolize everything favored by international ‘free trade’ treaties. They impose the prices they want on everyone by bringing cheap products from places where farmers and ecosystems are exploited even more than here.
– Because the administrations row in favor of the agro-industry while they cover us with procedures, paperwork and ridiculous fees for those of us who are already doing well, while the big companies that apply herbicides and toxics escape regulation.
– Because contrary to what the agribusiness is trying to do, the organic farmers of Mallorca are indeed in favor of most of the environmental, agroecological and animal welfare measures proposed by Europe. There will be no personal health without reducing agrotoxicants, without a healthy ecosystem and food free of poisons.
LONG LIVE THE FREE LAND AND FARMER!
