A company in Mallorca won't let tourists in: "The peasantry can't become a circus coin."

SinedThe Algaida company Flor de Figa has announced that it is closing the Es Rafalet estate, the property of owner Julià, to tourist visits. The straw that broke the camel's back, perhaps more accurately, is the Balearic Islands government's refusal and obstacles to paying for truckloads of water in the Pla de Mallorca region.

Ponç Cloquell, co-owner of the farm with his two sons (the company received the Relleu Generational Rural Up 2023 award), explains that the decision also comes because "we believe that we must take a step, we cannot continue with this tourism. Those of us who are dedicated to the peasantry cannot become a circus money, the page

In this sense, he recalls the statements made this week by the dean of the Official College of Architects of the Balearic Islands, Bernat Nadal, who, in reference to the decision to allow construction on common rural land, as planned by the PP Government and the far right, said that the Balearic Islands "will become a stage set." Cloquell mentions these statements and adds that "that's what we think; we don't want to be a stage set and we don't need tourism."

In fact, he explains that "our business is not to give tourist visibility to the Mallorcan countryside, our business is to sell figs. For now we have local clients who buy figs from us and the day we can't sell them and we have a pig farm and we will give them to them."

In a message posted on social networks witha video of the farmwhich has gone viral, Flor de Figa explains that in recent years they had opened their doors to tourist visits: "We have shown them our houses, our almond and carob plantations and our queens... the fig trees, but we have said enough", because "it turns out that the Balearic Government has closed the door to subsidies. They add that "meanwhile, desalination plants are being built for the entire coast and for tourists." "This can no longer be like this, we cannot continue to maintain the landscape, our farms without water not even to feed ourselves." For all these reasons, "we say enough to tourism that does not bring us anything."

Tourists with Mercedes

Regarding the type of tourism that used to visit the estate and to which its doors are now closed, Cloquell explains that they were "visits that came through agencies that organize tourist experiences. They were high-end groups that came with Mercedes and chauffeurs, but now it's enough."

Cloquell, who a year ago in an interview with Apaema already demanded that "agricultural use be the priority on rural land," recalls that the Tourism Law states that tourist establishments must buy 5% of the local product to give to customers, but "what they give doesn't even reach 1.5%."

Losses

Returning to the water problem in the Pla de Mallorca, the farm planted around forty fig trees that could not be saved due to a lack of water. "We have enough water because we collect 100,000 liters of rainwater a year, but we need to buy about 10 truckloads a year, which they can't bring to us because the distribution company is overbooked and overloaded with carrying water to the village wells, and we farmers are the last to go."

Finally, when asked if he expects other farms linked to the primary sector to follow his example and close their doors to tourist visits, Cloquell neither asks nor expects anyone to do the same: "We don't want to be an example of anything; everyone should do what interests them and act" according to their own comfort zone.