Avocado is undoubtedly a very delicious food and also in high demand for its good macros, which has led to an increase in its production. This proliferation in its cultivation seems to bring good news for our land (especially because it sells well), but on the Costa del Sol and the Tropical Coast of Malaga and Granada the great environmental impacts are already seen which is generating such as the plowing of the slopes and a large water consumption that aggravates the drought already typical of southern Spain.
A great consumption. To put figures, More than 20,000 hectares are now dedicated to avocados in these provinceswith some 5,000 hectares converted from dry land to irrigated land, with dubious legality behind it, which has also caused the appearance up to 250 illegal wells in 2023.
This expansion, which represents 30% of the Andalusian avocado area (about 9,400 hectares in total), has replaced traditional crops with hypertensive tropical crops despite the climate crisis. All to opt for a crop that can undoubtedly give a great economic return.
Environmentalism. A recent complaint made through Along with this complaint, which points to the serious environmental problems that are being experienced, different images are shown that undoubtedly speak for themselves to understand how this crop is affecting the geography.
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What we are seeing is not just agriculture; It is an industrial transformation of the landscape that is pushing the water and geological resources of Malaga and Granada to the limit. This is how avocado and mango have gone from being “green gold” to becoming an environmental time bomb.
Destruction engineering. Traditionally, agriculture in these areas was adapted to the natural orography of the land. But now, the model that has been imposed, driven by the very high profitability of the tropical fruit, does the opposite: adapt the orography to the crop by force.
According to Ecologists in Action and confirm various edaphic studiesthe implementation of these crops requires heavy machinery to break slopes. The process eliminates the original vegetation cover to create artificial terraces. The result? A severe degradation of the soil in its surface horizons.
A problem with storms. With this degradation, what is caused is the elimination of natural vegetation, which produces a “sealing” of the soil and consequently the appearance of cracks that nullify its biological functions. The problem arises when torrential rains appear (increasingly more frequent in the Mediterranean), which causes the water to not filter and run away, dragging nutrients and causing massive erosion.
This is something that translates into the use of more fertilizers by farmers, which end up contaminating the subsoil. In short, we are facing a vicious cycle of chemical and physical degradation.
An infinite thirst. The avocado is a fruit that fits perfectly in the rainforest, but has now been transplanted in an area with a semi-arid Mediterranean climate. An ideal place for traditional dryland crops such as olive or almond trees that can survive on what falls from the sky. But avocado or mango in a hypertensive model demand about 7,500 cubic meters of water per hectare per year.
These demands Added to the large number of plantations that exist, as we have commented previously, it leads to great water tension that we have seen reflected in the La Viñuela reservoir, which has reached only 7% of its capacity in 2023, and which has reached La Axarquía in Malaga. to a critical situation.
And this deficit is not solved with rain, but with drilling machines that open wells in the area. In this way, the direct consequence is clear: overexploitation of aquifers and their salinization due to marine intrusion.
An escalated problem. This avocado bubble does not stop increasing in our country. Given the collapse that has been experienced in Malagathe model has been replicated in Cádiz, Hueva or Murcia, which in the end are regions that already suffer their own water stress due to not receiving much rainfall throughout the year.
But not only has he been emigrating from the provinces, but he has also escalated to the judicial field, where the prosecution points it is already being investigated a possible environmental crime with damage to the public water domain valued at 10 million euros and the illegal theft of up to 26 cubic hectometers of water. And in many of these regions citizens have had to suffer supply cuts due to this shortage, while this agricultural model continued to demand
A solution. What is proposed In this case it is the ordered de-escalation of these crops. To achieve this, the goal is to stop new irrigation talks and close illegal wells. The problem is that it faces a very important leg of the economy of some of these provinces, against the change in the landscapes of the region.
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