"It's a shame that in Mallorca we can't live off the water from the mills."

Farmer Pedro Cirer's windmill returned to operation this Tuesday after being shut down for approximately two years. According to him, he has managed to extract between 30,000 and 40,000 liters of water in just one hour, allowing him to irrigate his crops. Furthermore, this extraction system saves him "up to three or four hours of electricity," he celebrates. Due to its excellent performance, Cirer believes that "it's shameful that in Mallorca we can't live off the water from the windmills."

This installation was built by his godfather shortly after his father was born, around 1960—a sign inside the tower bears witness to this. "It's one of the few in the Sant Jordi plan that had never stopped drawing water," he explains proudly. But two years ago, they had to stop it because a stingy boss took it over. After the disaster, he restored it with the aim of getting it working again one day, since he believes that "if a windmill doesn't draw water, it's not a windmill." However, he admits that he rebuilt it "more for sentimental reasons than for practical reasons."

He regrets that these types of facilities require constant supervision because, otherwise, "they are on the way to collapse." He asserts that, if he could control it as much as he wanted, he would make it work at its best. Cerezo also links the lack of supervision of the windmills to the current shortage of farmers in the primary sector. "There aren't any, and that's why the windmills could disappear," he warns.

Before the arrival of electric generators—which marked the beginning of the decline of windmills, which continues to this day—farmers used these installations to extract water and deposit it in continuous wash basins, which irrigated the fields. As their function was lost, their maintenance also declined, and today they survive as heritage relics.

Despite this situation, Mallorca remains the territory in the world with the highest concentration of windmills per square meter. The island has 3,600 mills, of which 600 are flour mills and the other 3,000 are water mills. The former have six large blades that were misted over the wood in a process known as 'veiling the mill', and were used to grind grain and make flour. They crown the Jonquet and can also be seen on Calle de la Fàbrica in Palma. The latter have 18 smaller blades and were used to extract water. They are typical of the Sant Jordi plain, but are also concentrated in Campos, Ses Salines, Muro, and Sa Pobla.

Josep Pascual, PhD in Industrial Engineering and president of the Association of Friends of the Windmills of Mallorca, believes that saving this heritage involves giving it a use. "If we don't find a function for them, they will gradually degrade," he says, referring to the watermills, which he considers interesting from a practical point of view. Of the 3,000, "a thousand are recoverable because they are in reasonable condition."

On the other hand, Cirer asserts that he does not want subsidies to maintain the mill. What he would like is for the vegetables and other crops he grows with the extracted water "to have a fair price."