Our grand tour of southern Spain January 30th Day Sixteen

 

Monday 30^th January Day sixteen

Why does the Almeria region have so many plastic greenhouses?

What are the geographical issues surrounding Almeria’s ‘sea of plastic greenhouses?’

Today was up close and personal with the ‘sea of plastic’ that is Almeria’s famous plastic greenhouses. I have always believed that we have a personal responsibility when we travel to not only really enjoy ourselves, but also to try and better understand the geography of any area we visit. Today then is no exception to this belief but we would urge you to read our previous post before embarking on today’s journey with us. It will help set the context for today’s adventure and discussion.

And what an interesting and physically demanding day, with a twenty mile cycle over to the lighthouse, then back along the southern side of La Salinas to Cabo de Gato and a very welcomed Cafe con Leche Grande, before then cycling across the plains, along gravel tracks between a thousand green houses.

And boy, is it windy? A stiff breeze rushing across the plains from the north east and funnelled between the mountains of Cabo de Gato and the inland mountains some fifteen miles away. It is rare that we cycle in thermals and a duvet jacket!

Today we call in at coastal communities whose existence seems to be down to one of two things ..... migrant and local produce workers residential areas or closed up tourist apartment rentals and holiday homes. There are in all the settlements, small resident populations, mainly young families and elderly, based on our chance encounters today. Pujaire, where we are staying, has a small supermarket, one or two bars, a cash point and a couple of restaurants, nearly all of which are closed. Perhaps it's because it's Monday.

Our ride out along a gravel road to the north of La Salinas gives good views of the coastal hills and the local scrub vegetation. It rained a little last night and there are occasional muddy areas where animal tracks abound. Deer, rabbits, foxes, all easy to identify. But then there are the BIG paw prints. And I mean BIG!

Bears? Wild cats? These stop us in our tracks (forgive the pun, best I can do at short notice).

A notice board at a bird hide shows pictures of the local wildlife and we breathe a sigh of relief. Foxes are the top apex predator around these parts. Jolly good, one thing less to worry about then. Being a bear or mountain lynx snack is not an appealing prospect, is it? Tricky explaining to the kids how their mother was dragged off in to the scrub by a bear because she couldn’t cycle faster than me!

From a higher perspective, the end of La Salinas is a series of salt pools, normally of varying hues of pink, orange, green and russet brown; but sadly, not today. They look like buff, grey and green clay sludge and as for the promised flamingos .... not one. Not a single wading bird did we spot .... they too have been disappointed by the non-promise of temperatures in the top teens ..... they've migrated elsewhere for their winter.

At La Fabriquilla, we stop to admire the fine golden sands, the storm beach and the deep blue seas. The little car park has several long-term resident motorhomes, all with additional ‘suitcase’ type solar panels lined up in the sun. I must find someone who speaks English and can explain how they work and what benefit there is to carrying one. 

We look at the steep road ahead as it clings to the cliffside and mentally prepare ourselves for the onslaught to come. No pussyfooting around today, it's turbo mode and slow but steady. As it turns out, the climb isn't as bad as we expect. We have much worse where we live. The downhill run to the lighthouse is done carefully ... one or two switchback loop corners to contend with.

So, Faro de Cabo de Gato lighthouse ... is it worth the pain of that road climb? Yes, the views are nice and there is access to some great coastal walking. At this time of year plenty of parking for under 7m motorhomes as well.   The climb back from this destination proves more painful that the climb there, but mercifully, shorter.

At Alamadraba Monteleve, back down the other side and along the La Salinas, nothing is open. It is a small cluster of holiday apartments on three or four streets and a few summer time bars and cafes.  The salt processing works and the small roadside church provide some interest and photo opportunities. We are cycling into a headwind now and are relieved when we find a promenade bar open in Cabo de Gato itself. The car park there is full of motorhomes on long term stops ...all self-sufficient in solar panels although I'm left wondering where their toilet waste ends up. I couldn't see public toilets anywhere. We sit at the bar in full sunlight topping up the vitamin D and drinking coffee before heading off along the coastal gravel tracks which take us into greenhouse territory and some interesting insights. If you haven't read our previous blog post, it might be wise to do so before continuing with this one, as it provides context for what follows.

We stumble across a new, modern water plant by accident. It could be desalination. There were two big electricity transformer blocks next door and it’s a power intensive system. New reservoirs are still being completed. Further on, a small sewage works and then all the greenhouses.

Tomatoes, the big ones, are the main crop grown here. Row upon row upon row. Straight and tall, supported on wires strung to a grid of supporting wires across the roof top. We grab an insight into a surreal world of market gardening under white roofs through an open door. A worker appears, young, late twenties, who disappears and promptly returns with five fresh courgettes. No payment needed, a generous gift. We are offered tomatoes but we decline graciously. A smile, a slight bow, a wave. “’De nada', you are welcome’ he says and he disappears once more only to return with a small tractor. Skilfully reversing up to a huge pallet of stacked plastic veg boxes, he then trundles off with his load deep into the billowing recesses of greenhouse land, followed by four comrades on foot, all smiles and warmness.

The tomatoes by the way? Big, juicy and at various stages of ripening.

 Occasionally, we stop and look carefully through the tiny avenues that run through this greenhouse city and catch glimpses of ‘the hidden world’ - small black plastic lined ponds and small pumps; evidence of the sheer water intensive nature of some of this market gardening. And then, a glimpse or two of the odd chalet or caravan; worse a shack made of packing crates and tarpaulins, occasionally some of tin sheeting. These are the homes to migrant veg pickers, their laundry hanging out on temporary washing lines or across upright pallets. Formal and informal accommodation, the latter probably illegal. The chalets are the formalised provision. So, a ‘hidden, off-limits’ world to outsiders.

Sad to say, but this region of Andalusia attracts two very different kinds of foreigner.

Firstly, there are the thousands of tourists flocking to these stunning sandy beaches every year or to enjoy the winter warmth and sunshine. In this part of Andalusia, a family apartment will cost 250 euros a night in the high season; mainly paid for by British, French and German holidaymakers. They bring a huge source of revenue into the localities, if, of course, these tourists don’t go ‘all-inclusive’!

And the second type of foreigner in these parts?

The army of migrant workers who pick fruit and vegetables destined for the very regions all these tourists come from. And here is the geographical irony - how many of the tourists are aware of the geographical issues behind their cheap supermarket food back home, the salad bowls accompanying their meal in one of the local restaurants here on the Spanish coast and this army of migrant workers?  

Southern Andalusia with a conveniently forgotten fact! It is the ‘back garden allotment’ of the EU. And this comes at a price!

Over the last three years there have been many articles in the press here in Spain, across the EU and within the UK as well on the ‘Almerian shanty-towns’. And yes, they do exist- these ‘plastic shanty towns’. It is a difficult geographical conundrum to explain, so many facets and arguments abound.  But simply put, it goes like this.

Many Moroccans and north Africans come to Spain to be seasonal pickers. Some come illegally, crossing in boats. It is something we will be familiar with if we are French or British – the channel issue!

Illegal migrants set up shanty towns amongst the high-density greenhouse areas. Some are rapidly taken down by the authorities and local agribusinesses and some, conveniently, are not. Many shanty towns are contentious places – alleyways strewn with rubbish because there are no collection services. Makeshift toilet areas in dried up riverbeds; electricity stolen from the proper services lines that run between the legitimate businesses. Migrants are mainly young and middle-aged men, many from Morocco and Mali and the covid pandemic has made the situation dire in North Africa so the numbers arriving to seek such employment have soared immediately post pandemic (but as we shall see in a bit, Spain has been taking measures to combat this). Some bring families with them as well.

As always, the figures can be illuminating. According to Spain's interior ministry, migrant arrivals by sea alone amounted to 15,317 in 2021, an increase of 56.4% compared with 2020. However, between 2021 and the end of 2022, this migration flow dropped by 26% due to new agreements and cooperation between Spanish and Moroccan governments – a coordinated fight against the people smuggling mafias.

A Spanish government bill passed in July 2022 aimed to help businesses legalise their undocumented migrants residing in these shanty town areas. It aimed to fill the vacancies in sectors that were currently understaffed, including the hospitality industry, farming, and agriculture. Around 500,000 undocumented workers who are not employed legally were able to join the official labour force and so pay taxes and contributions to Spain.

So far, so good?  Well not quite! 

At the start of July, 2022 for example, more than 800 migrants came ashore in the resorts of San José, Villaricos, Cabo de Gata and Carboneras and according to the workers union, Comisiones Obreros (CCOO), 90% of the hard labour in this sea of plastic greenhouses outside Almeria  is done by migrants, (both legal and still illegal). Spraying, picking and cleaning the plastic roofs of the tunnels, there is still a sizeable illegal migrant community in a hidden world between the greenhouses.

And not all of them are being treated humanely!

Local migrant NGOs and charities estimate that between 4,000 and 5,000 migrant workers in Almería’s district of Nijar are still living in shacks cobbled together from plastic sheeting and debris; in which they freeze in winter and boil in summer. In the wider province, the numbers may be as many as 10,000.

And what about their working conditions? There are local press stories of some horrendous treatment of migrant labour forces - confiscated passports to prevent them leaving or moving elsewhere; refusals to pay people for long 12-hour days; expectations that at the end of the shift workers will guard farm equipment overnight.  Then there is no access to running water or toilet facilities and no decent sleeping quarters provision.

So why don’t migrants just move? Well, more often than not, immigrants are afraid and ill-informed about their rights or the proper working practices they can expect or about their actual legal status. Scared to report bad bosses because of fear of deportation or sacking, they often just play the game, accepting 4 or 5 euros an hour when the law says it should be 7.20 euros minimum legal national living wage.

It isn’t all doom and gloom. The CCOO workers’ union, fighting for migrant rights, has successively sued those businesses who fail to treat their workers properly.

But then there is more to this than meets the eye. Remember, this is a modern-day geographical conundrum. So, what about the small farming agribusiness perspective?

Small farm producers are struggling to stay afloat. It is exactly the same in the UK, just talk to any Cornish or Welsh farmer at the moment. Buyers, especially the large supermarkets don't always provide stable prices and small farmers in Spain cannot compete against the bigger agribusinesses in this area. They have to save costs to stay in business and stay competitive. Supermarkets claim consumers demand cheap prices for their foods and they are prepared to shop around to get it especially in a cost-of-living crisis. Thus, the supermarkets have the power over the small producers. For some small businesses, the only way they can stay in business, is to make savings where they can – on, for example, the wages bill!

Geographical economic conundrums, eh?

Migrant pickers see some farmers with big cars, expensive clothes and shiny watches. They see money being made off their backs – and savings through paying illegally low wages.  They feel resentful.

In the last two years substantial strides have been made to address these issues.  Local labour force lawyers estimate that 50 to 60% of local agribusiness owners are doing right by their employees. They provide the correct legal documentation to help their employees become legalised citizens; they provide the national minimum wage to their migrant workforce.  Some of the businesses have provided better accommodation – the chalets, the small apartment blocks.

There are around 17,000 fruit and vegetable producers in this part Almeria where we are staying now and once again, I am left pondering some geographical questions!

·        Should all migrants be provided with better accommodation by the businesses they work for?

·        Should these businesses be held to account and responsible for the growth of illegal shanty towns?

·        Where does local government responsibility lie on this issue about the provision of basic human rights services like clean water, clean toilets and suitable accommodation?

The national government, the administration of Andalucía, and the municipalities are joining forces to build shelter and alternative housing for the immigrant day labourers. A few weeks ago, they signed a cooperation protocol to promote the construction of housing and the adaptation of spaces to promote shelter for seasonal workers in the next 2 years. Furthermore, a budget of €5 million has been set aside for this initiative.  It is the first major collaboration between the three administrations to eradicate ‘slums’ in the province, after decades in which national, regional, and local institutions watched as this situation of overpopulation of migrants in substandard housing spiralled out of control.

Sounds good – a great initiative. However, as always, there are those pesky geographical conundrums, again!

Local NGOs are surprised that the protocol signed by the national and regional government does not include any municipality in the province of Almería. But wait I hear you say!  Isn’t the ‘plastic shanty town slum phenomenon’ taking place in this area and hasn’t it been doing so for decades?

Well, yes it has!  These geographical conundrums are really complex aren’t they! For example, in and around the ‘Mar de plástico’ at El Ejido, not far from us, the urgency to do something is immense.  According to Juan Miralles, head of Almería Acoge, there are about 80 slums in Almería. They originated in the mid-1990s and now between 3,000 and 5,000 families live there more or less permanently. Illegal migrants face a host of problems still. They are needed/wanted by small businesses but at the same time, they aren’t!

Well, we’ve already covered the low illegal wages, the lack of basic facilities, the fear of deportation – surely there can’t be more …. Can there?

To rent a place to live, migrants need a payslip and insurance papers. No one will rent vacant accommodation to those who don't have either or who don't speak the language. Not surprisingly, migrants are finding it difficult to register with the local authorities for accessing medical and social care here in Almeria.

(Don’t forget, it is similar in the UK. How many times have we picked up a paper to read about legal migrants to the UK facing inadequate slum like accommodation and difficulties accessing social services provision or employment?)

And then there are Spanish government contradictions which help ‘fuel’ the crisis - a migrant can get up to 400 euros for each child in their family. It costs a farmer around 500 euros to sort the documentation for a worker and it can take up to two years for the documentation to be processed. Many local farmers talk about just wanting an easy process to enable them to accommodate, pay and document migrant workers. Funny that! It sounds like the same argument British farmers are making over the paperwork to do with BREXIT isn’t it; oh, and their need for skilled migrant pickers too. BREXIT serves as a reminder to many in the EU farming community of what can happen when freedom of movement and the ability to use overseas migrant labour for crop harvesting fails.

So many incongruities in this contradictory human story, aren’t there?  

And what about other facets to this real places, real people, real geography story?

In 2019 and 2020 far right political parties took nearly 30% of local election votes. Hate crimes are on the increase and as you will read in a minute, literally on the day I am sat here writing this post, controversial tactics have been employed at one of the illegal shanty towns in the area!

I will not condone or justify illegal migration! But, I will always try to be empathetic towards those whose only recourse of action is to do such a journey. Where the UK is concerned, the rising numbers of illegal migrants crossing the channel, is frankly, the government’s own doing. There are far too few legal routes for asylum seekers and economic migrants to apply through. We fail to take a fair share of those seeking asylum or temporary working status within Europe. We fail to sort out genuine asylum seekers at the earliest opportunity by allowing them to apply at the British embassy of the first European country they step into. We have significant labour shortages in a number of industries and since BREXIT our immigration numbers from countries outside of the EU have risen significantly to the point where, to staff the NHS, we are now involved in the new neo-colonialism, of poaching highly trained medical staff, from the poorest countries, who can ill afford to lose such expertise. It is a shameful disgrace with some reprehensible rhetoric being used by a few divisive government ministers.

In Spain, I am in awe of their migrant labourers. Three years before they can gain legal status. Three years of working in plastic tunnels, in 50C temperatures during the summer. Three years of inhaling pesticide fumes because often they are not provided with appropriate PPE. Three years of itinerant living in variable conditions.  All for the chance of a better life and better wages; for a chance to make something of themselves and to provide an adequate standard of living for their families.

 Easy to criticise economic migrants isn’t it. But let’s not forget, how many young people move south annually from the North in the UK, so that they can get better prospects? Same principle, just a different location!  Our own country history is littered with examples of population movement based on economic necessity and survival, is it not?

The bravery and sacrifices involved in making such a journey from north Africa should never be underestimated. I do not condone illegal migration but I can understand why it happens and if the circumstances were reversed and I was living in economic hardship with no prospects ..... wouldn’t I make the move?

And what about the story in today’s local news channels and papers? How poignant is this, that I write about this geographical conundrum during the day, only to return to the motorhome to discover this happening on the same day, just down the road from where we are ……..

"Amid chaos and confusion, Spanish police forcibly evicted an estimated 450 migrant workers from the El Walili settlement in the southern province of Almeria on Monday. Dozens of police officers converged on the settlements as helicopters flew overhead to control the eviction of residents from places some had called home for years. The plan was to demolish the entire shantytown, but first a fire broke out, causing residents to flee with whatever they could gather. Firefighters extinguished the blaze quickly, but Serigne Mbaye, a Senegalese activist and Madrid politician who was on the scene, suggested that the fire was more than a coincidence. “This was clearly a strategy to make people have to leave because they were in danger. This is not humane. Immigrants are exploited, used, and thrown away,” he told local media. The eviction and destruction of the informal settlement was ordered by the local government and backed by a court. The El Walili camp was made up of small homemade shacks and, like many other migrant worker settlements in Spain, had no electricity, running water, or garbage collection. The court said it had to be destroyed because it “represented an imminent danger to its residents” due to fire risks, unsanitary conditions, and unstable buildings. Local authorities are offering the settlement’s former habitants temporary residence in an emergency shelter for a two-month maximum. After that, migrants are being told that their housing situations will be sorted out on a “case by case” basis, according to El Pais.

Migrant worker associations have denounced the lack of dialogue between the camp’s residents and the local government around evictions and alternative housing. Several other similar settlements still remain in the area. Fernando Plaza, spokesperson for the human rights organization APDHA, said El Walili is being destroyed because it’s visible, right off the highway, and “gets in the way of tourists’ views.”

Almeria, located in southeastern Spain, is often dubbed "the plastic sea" due to its massive concentration of greenhouses. The settlement was around an area that is home to a large amount of organic produce production. Spain's massive agricultural industry relies heavily on the labor of migrant workers, who primarily come from Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe. However, human rights groups have repeatedly denounced their living conditions. In 2020, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, said that he saw a migrant worker settlement in southern Spain “in conditions that rival the worst I have seen anywhere in the world. Many have lived there for years and can afford to pay rent, but said no one will accept them as tenants. They are earning as little as €30 per day, and have almost no access to any form of government support.”

              Source: Anadolu agency news and other local newspaper.

Real people, real places, real geography. There will be a missing perspective on this story, one I’ve yet to be able to track down. That of local residents, local councils and local businesses in this area.

Meanwhile, is it not beholden on us all, to travel with a critical mind and questioning nature? Yes, we should really, really enjoy our adventures, of course we should! But, turning a ‘blind eye’ to what goes on behind the scenes we see? We won’t and we hope you won’t either.