Small Farms in Spain Exempted from Ban on Burning Agricultural Waste

Summary

The ban on burn­ing agri­cul­tural remains in Spain and the EU does not apply to small farms, which must still obtain autho­riza­tion from local author­i­ties to burn. Exemptions to the burn­ing ban also include cer­tain forestry man­age­ment oper­a­tions and phy­tosan­i­tary treat­ments, but these exemp­tions are sub­ject to inter­pre­ta­tion and are not legally bind­ing for courts or judges.

The ban on burn­ing agri­cul­tural remains found in Spanish national reg­u­la­tions and the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will not apply to small farms in Spain.

In a note, Madrid’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has clar­i­fied that the exemp­tion applies to micro and small farms, which will still need to be autho­rized to burn by the local author­i­ties.

Micro-farms are those with an annual turnover below €2 mil­lion and employ no more than ten work­ers. On the other hand, small farms do not have more than 50 employ­ees, and the turnover does not exceed €10 mil­lion.

The burn­ing ban might also be lifted for those using the prac­tice as a last-resort phy­tosan­i­tary treat­ment.

Other exemp­tions to the burn­ing ban include forestry man­age­ment oper­a­tions that must remove dead veg­e­ta­tion. In these cases, autho­rized lim­ited burn­ing can occur when the amount of veg­e­ta­tion could be con­sid­ered wild­fire fuel.

That excep­tion allows forestry man­age­ment ser­vices to burn remains from clear­ing, trim­ming, over­growth, shoots cuts, prun­ing, pick­ling, skim­ming, etc.

These clar­i­fi­ca­tions match the infor­ma­tion in the announce­ment of a period of low for­est fire dan­ger just issued by the Junta de Extremadura, the gov­ern­ment of cen­tral Spain.

In that order, the Junta de Extremadura explained that burn­ing ban exemp­tions for pest treat­ments could only be autho­rized for a lim­ited num­ber of crops when those crops were man­i­festly affected by cer­tain pests.

The local Junta also spec­i­fied that autho­rized farms could only burn agri­cul­tural remains pro­duced within their bound­aries.

The nature and scope of the exemp­tions to the cur­rent reg­u­la­tions have been the core of a heated debate at national and regional lev­els.

Burning has been a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion in many farm­ing oper­a­tions and is con­sid­ered cru­cial by many farm­ers. The plague of wild­fires and the intro­duc­tion of new agro­nom­i­cal prac­tices have affected these tra­di­tions, with agri­cul­tural remains often being treated and reused by farm­ers to enrich and pro­tect the soil.

As reported by CastellonPlaza, local politi­cians had asked for the burn­ing ban to be removed after its ini­tial intro­duc­tion in the law against soil con­t­a­m­i­na­tion enacted last spring.

As reported by Agropopular, the General Directorate of the Ministry, which pub­lished the clar­i­fi­ca­tions, also spec­i­fied that the exemp­tions can only be con­sid­ered an inter­pre­ta­tion of the law. This means that their inter­pre­ta­tion is not bind­ing for courts or judges.

• Agropopular
• CastellonPlaza
• Junta de Extremadura