Miquel Coll: "To protect agriculture, construction in the countryside must be prohibited"

PalmaThe president of the Association of Ecological Agricultural Production of Mallorca (Apaema), Miquel Coll, takes stock of the legislature regarding agriculture. Although he "would approve of the management of the minister", Joan Simonet, he considers it essential to stop construction in the countryside and warns: "The agri-food industry linked to the primary sector is being dismantled". The agrarian law is one of the pending issues that the Government wants to push forward before the end of the legislature.

What do you think of the agrarian law that will soon be processed in Parliament?

— What we find missing from the Government does not strictly correspond to the agrarian law. We have always asked for a serious approach to be taken: a moratorium that prohibits construction in rural areas, if we want to protect agrarian activity. If we do not address this issue, we can make all the agrarian laws we want. It is dismantling the agri-food industry linked to the primary sector: Agama, Piema, Carob... We are late. If we do not face crucial elements for the survival of the primary sector, and only focus on applying patches with complementary activities, we do not finish resolving issues that affect us in a transversal way. On the other hand, we are critical of other aspects.

In what aspects?

— For example, how the distribution of aid is being carried out. We see with concern how, call after call, the same farms are the ones that repeat aid, curiously, and there is no more equitable distribution. Some companies take away very significant amounts of the budget. The formula must be rethought. If a company or a farm has received aid, it should not be able to apply for the next call. There are professional farmers who systematically go without, and cannot undertake investments in their farms. It is also very important to address the issue of climate change. We had a meeting of the climate change board at the beginning of the legislature and it has not met again. We are seeing the effects of climate change on a multitude of crops and subsectors of the primary sector. We have to see where we are going and what measures we take. This should be linked to the conception of the aid, and reward farms that carry out correct environmental management.

What do you think about the possibility that with the agrarian law the number of tourist places in agricultural holdings is increased from six to ten?

— The subject of agro-estates generates much debate, but it is neither alien nor strange to everything that rural tourism has been in a good part of Spain and Europe. What was not normal were the agrotourism models we had here in Mallorca, which were luxury hotels in the middle of the countryside. That there is a farm that, within existing legal buildings, can receive people interested in its products, does not seem bad to me. Before there were six places and now there will be ten, but the reality is that not a single agro-estate has yet been opened in Mallorca: the subject is used demagogically.

Are you worried about water scarcity?

— Yes. With all the pressure we have in the countryside with villas and wells, and given that most consumption is residential, the primary sector is increasingly pushed to the sidelines and has fewer possibilities to survive. Many opportunities are given to authorize villas and for them to have water: it is a very scarce resource on our islands, and we should prioritize using it to produce food.