Farmers Protest Eradication Plan in Spain

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Protesters in Alicante will for­mally peti­tion the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment, Climate Change and Regional Planning to halt the destruc­tion of healthy olive and almond trees in the region.

The Platform for those Affected by Xylella fas­tidiosa in Alicante (AXFA) pre­sented their appeal at a gen­eral assem­bly meet­ing in Castell de Guadalest.

The appeal was approved and now the group, which is com­posed of more than 100 local farm­ers, will sub­mit it in court.

According to Adolfo Ribes, the AXFA spokesman, the appeal is nec­es­sary to tem­porar­ily stop the destruc­tion of healthy trees as well as to begin legal pro­ce­dures for the imple­men­ta­tion of a con­tain­ment plan.

“The Valencian admin­is­tra­tion has not dared to defend us, nei­ther before the rest of the Autonomous Communities of our coun­try, nor before our Ministry nor before Brussels,” he said.

“ASAJA Alicante and AXFA have a firm con­vic­tion that destroy­ing healthy, rain-fed trees is an eco­log­i­cal and land­scap­ing aber­ra­tion that, if it occurs, will mark the begin­ning of the end of our forests, of our peo­ple, of life in these areas.”

This is the fifth out­break of the plant pathogen in the region since June. Due to the fre­quency of the out­breaks, the European Union (EU) has told the Spanish gov­ern­ment that it will pro­vide funds for the erad­i­ca­tion plan stip­u­lated by the European Commission.

“Strict erad­i­ca­tion mea­sures apply, con­sist­ing of a clear cut of all host plants of the spe­cific sub­species of Xylella fas­tidiosa, irre­spec­tive of their health sta­tus, in a radius of 100 meters around the infected plants,” an EU spokesper­son said.

“Although these mea­sures impact on the local agro-econ­omy, they are needed in the inter­est of the Union as a whole in order to pre­serve EU agri­cul­ture, as well as pub­lic and pri­vate gar­dens.”

The EU’s rig­or­ous erad­i­ca­tion plan was made and approved with numer­ous sci­en­tific con­sul­ta­tions. The plan would involve destroy­ing count­less more trees than those that are infected, which has led to wide­spread protests in Alicante.

“Razing all of the trees, both the healthy and the sick, is not the solu­tion, because we are no longer iso­lated cases,” Eladio Aniorte, the pres­i­dent of ASAJA Alicante, said. ​“The infes­ta­tions have spread to three regions, and there is a high prob­a­bil­ity that new out­breaks will be announced soon.”

Aniorte and Ribes have both called on the Spanish gov­ern­ment to pub­lish the results of more than 7,000 test sam­ples it has taken in order for all those affected to know the true scope of the dis­ease.

Aniorte said a con­tain­ment plan could be equally effec­tive with­out incur­ring mas­sive dam­age to the region’s agri­cul­tural sec­tor. He also pointed out that Alicante is espe­cially impor­tant to Spanish agri­cul­ture since it receives more rain­fall than neigh­bor­ing com­mu­ni­ties, which also grow olives and almonds.

“We can not under­stand why the Council does not work to bring to the Ministry and Brussels a con­tain­ment plan that replaces the erad­i­ca­tion plan,” he said. ​“It’s an equally effec­tive pro­to­col to pre­vent the spread of the infes­ta­tions, but less aggres­sive with those affected and the ter­ri­tory.”

Xylella fas­tidiosa has plagued south­ern Italy for five years now, forc­ing the gov­ern­ment to cut down tens of thou­sands of olive trees. Farmers in Italy have protested and also ques­tion whether the EU’s method is effec­tive.

Back in Spain, farm­ers and min­is­ters are both con­cerned about the poten­tial for the con­tin­u­ing expan­sion of the dis­ease, even if they do not agree on how to stop it.

• La Vanguardia


• RTN