Good to know...

This time I would like to tell you about the danger of the strawberry fruits cultivated out of season in Spain. I supply you with the information (extracted from an article by Claude-Marie Vadrot in Politis of April 12, 2007) and my own experience on how to avoid the danger of these fruits and use your power as a citizen to make things change. You're then free to take your own decision... and to go to the local market and buy the fruits of the season.

Dulce Rodrigues

DANGEROUS STRAWBERRIES CULTIVATED IN SPAIN

Should we eat the strawberries cultivated out of season in Spain?

The answer is "NO"!

For a few years now we find in small supermarkets and big malls all kinds of fruits out of season. We all know – even though sometimes we make believe we don’t – that in order to keep us in good health we should eat the fruits and veggies of the season. Today I’m going to tell you about the Spanish strawberry… well, if we should call "strawberries" those big red things that look like tomatoes… and taste – do they really taste? – more or less like tomatoes…

If the only problem caused by these Spanish strawberries growing in greenhouses were however the fact that they don't taste at all, we could still be happy… Unfortunately, these strawberries are a cause of deep harm, the first being that this kind of agriculture covers about six thousand hectares of land and a large percentage of this land belongs to the national park of Doñana, an extraordinary natural reserve for migrating and breeding birds in Europe. This is obviously illegal but the local authorities close their eyes to the fact.

In order to reach the European markets, these strawberries have to be carried thousands of kilometres by road. At an average of ten tons per vehicle, the 16,000 that run on the European roads each year are well worth their weight in C02 and other toxic combustion gases.

But the extent of dangers driven by the cultivation of the Spanish strawberries reaches still further. Do you know how these strawberries are cultivated?

The strawberry is a perennial plant that produces fruit for many years. However, these Spanish strawberry plants growing in greenhouses are destroyed every year. The young plants are produced in vitro and put inside refrigerators in the peak of summer. This method simulates winter and stimulates the growing of the plants and their production out of season.

In autumn the sandy soil is cleaned and sterilized and the microfauna destroyed with methyl bromide and chloropicrine. Methyl bromide is a violent poison forbidden by the protocol of Montreal on gases with greenhouse effect on the earth atmosphere. Chloropicrine is not less dangerous; it is a compound of chlorine and ammonia that may cause death.

The young plants grow on a soil covered with black plastic and the irrigation water contains chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. The irrigation water comes from wells, most of them in illegal condition. This situation is therefore transforming this part of Spain (Andalusia) in a dry savannah and contributing to the exodus of the migrating birds and the extinction of the last 30 lynxes still remaining in the territory, since these small mammals feed on rabbits, and these too are in danger of extinction. Adding to this, around 2,000 hectares of forest have already been cut down in order to find place for the strawberries.

Production and exportation of the Spanish strawsberries starts before the end of winter and lasts until the beginning of June. The workers are then requested to return home or to get exile some place else in Spain. If they suffer from illnesses they contract because of the harmful products they had to handle, they have the right to take care of their health... at their own expenses...

The majority of the enterprises producing these Spanish strawberries use a labour force from Morocco, people working on a seasonal basis and most of them illegally, underpaid and lodging in very poor conditions. To fight against the cold of the winter nights, these workers burn the remains of the plastic covering the strawberry plants. Anyway, every year at the end of the production season of this kind of strawberries, around five thousand tons of plastic will be either taken by the wind or buried somewhere and somehow or burnt on the spot... Useless to say that in this part of Andalusia where they practice this kind of agriculture the population is strongly suffering from lung diseases and skin affections.

Who cares about this? Nobody!

Why doesn’t the media speak about this? Because it is not politically and economically correct...

When the soil will be wholly devastated and production no longer economically feasible, the whole thing will be moved to Morocco, where some Spanish businesses are already being settled down… And most probably their next move will be to China... The European population still alive will be sick and unemployed… but enjoying the happiness of buying low-cost products…

What can we do to reverse this situation?

Each of us is free to act in full conscience and knowledge: to buy or to boycott any product that is not produced in accordance with the laws of nature and/or human rights. We all have the power of individual boycott. If the great majority of people in the world would act in this way, the big economical “sharks” would be compelled to change their methods or to endanger their own survival as they now endanger the lives of the world population. The decision is in your hands!

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