Until the middle of the twentieth century, the most consumed banana variety in the world was The Gros Michel. There was a huge international market around this variety and the future seemed prosperous to all: farmers, merchants and consumers. In the 50s everything changed.
The Panama disease He began to devastate Gros Michel plantations and, although the producers engaged in a race against the fungus, took less than a decade to end them around the world. Today, it is almost impossible to find on a commercial level.
Well, that is just what is happening to the bomb rice.
The fall of the ‘King of rice gastronomy’. And as with the Gross Michel, the cause of this debacle is perfectly located: the pyricularosis fungus. This plague has a wide pathogenic variety; But, in general terms, Inhibits rice tissues growth And the performance has sink. It also makes it very fast.
The problem is that, little by little, it is becoming resistant to the available fungicides and the pump rice is much more sensitive than other varieties.
The trigger. It is not innocent that, when he described the problem of resistances to fungicides, he added the word “available.” The trigger for this situation has been that European regulations The maximum waste limits have dropped of the only useful pesticide – Triciclazole – until it is unusable. In fact, Brussels Does not let cultivated rice import With that pesticide.
And what happened? Well, what as Vicente Lladró explained in summerthe fungus “Campa at ease in the fields and reduces productions to non -profitable minimums.” That has led to the harvest to historical minimums, has triggered prices (up to 8 or 10 euros per kilo) and has raised fixed costs.
In summary, the situation is diverting producers to other varieties that better tolerate the effects of the disease. We have Arrived at the point that “In many cases there is already a lack of quality grain to prepare future plantings.”
Is the problem so big? Compared to 7-8,000 kilos of conventional round rice that produces one hectare in the Albufera Parkthe previous campaign the pump gave a yield of 1,000. As much as prices rise, profitability seems impossible.
A dead end. Because the background problem is that the pump rice is something that is only grown in Spain and if the variety becomes unfeasible, it will become a museum piece. In fact, many producers They are already going to the Albufera variety What happens to be the most similar to the pump within which the disease resists better.
But despite the protests of the farmers, the regulation is still alive (and it is not clear that it will be changed). This shows us another of the big problems that the Spanish field will go through in the coming years. Because we are seeing How inumerable “new” diseases arrive at the Peninsula And that also includes those that affect the plants we grow.
And what do we do? Preparing for this, while the sanitary requirements of the food chain increase, is one of the great challenges of our century. Even more in an environment like the European, in which One of the main tools (the genetic edition) It is also blocked.
However, in the next decades we play a good part of our agricultural heritage in something as apparently simple as learning to keep it in the new world towards which we head.
Image | Salome Bielsa | Enrique Dans
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