You can cut a government so much slack. Or perhaps it's a case of giving it enough rope with which to hang itself. There will be no hanging or lynching, though. There are too many willing to give it all the slack it wants as retaliation for the Partido Popular. Which is understandable, until you begin to appreciate just what this government is up to. This assumes, however, that the government itself knows, because it is giving an excellent impression of not knowing. Instead it glosses its policies with vagueness. There's a new economic model rising. Is there? And what economy might be left to be modelled?
The tourist tax was one thing, but now we have a series of measures that have emerged from the most ominous sounding of the government's raft of legislative devices - the decree. It has decreed. The very term smacks of finality, albeit that parliament needs to apply a compliant rubber stamp. It also has a sense of taking no regard of any alternative interests. For a government whose motto contains the insistent dialogue, it seems to be short on conversation, except with itself. It is pulling a fast one.
The decree of "urgent measures" that the government has announced in suspending or quashing elements of three key bills introduced by the Bauzá administration - farming, land and tourism - has echoes of a similarly urgent decree that the previous PSOE-led government passed. It was one from 2008 which dealt with, among other things, building on land deemed to be wetland. From that decree came all manner of complications, most of which still exist. A major one is the Ses Fontanelles commercial centre development in Playa de Palma. The Bauzá regime was left with the consequence of the decree. If it were to deny construction, there was a massive compensation claim to be paid. There are other examples, such as in Puerto Pollensa. Somewhere along the line, these are issues which will have to be resolved, with the Ses Fontanelles development now seemingly an impossibility.
The 2008 decree created legal uncertainty. The current government is creating the same. It says that it is not, but its certainty can only ever be short-term. If there were to be a change in government in 2019 and a return of the right, then its decree will be overturned. This is tit-for-tat politics, something which Mallorca is highly adept at. The decree oozes vindictiveness directed at Carlos Delgado and Biel Company, the ministers responsible for the three laws in question. In the case of Company and his farming law, the government has succeeded in ostracising one of the very few business associations that operate in harmony with other parts of its industry. Asaja, the agricultural businesses association (of which Company was once president), has long worked from the same script as unions in seeking to improve opportunities.
Asaja has declined an invitation to form part of a committee which will have as one of its briefs the current serious problem of lack of water. It has done so because it objects to the government decree which puts a halt to development of farm land for purposes other than just farming. While it's true that the Company act may have favoured larger landowners, the thinking behind it was sound. There is a vast amount of land devoted to agriculture, and yet the primary sector is responsible for not much more than one per cent of GDP. The law wanted to improve productivity, to create new opportunities and jobs. The decree will do precisely the opposite.
Farming unions like the fact that the government will be dedicating some of the tourist tax to agroforestry in order to "modernise" it. But what does the government mean by this? It talks of modernisation in one regard and turns it back on it in another. Joined-up thinking? Hardly.
While the hoteliers are the usual suspects when it comes to opposing the government, the farming businesses and the builders have not been. Now they are. The builders are warning of a collapse of recovery because of restrictions the decree imposes on redevelopment and some new construction in the tourism sector. The two industries - tourism and construction - go hand in hand in Mallorca. Attack one, and you attack the other. For a government - any government for that matter - looking to boost employment, the decree makes little sense. Except that it does, if you are a vindictive government.
And an aspect of this restriction will limit the room for manoeuvre in transforming mature (obsolete) parts of the resorts. In this regard, the hoteliers are absolutely right in saying that the government lacks an overall strategy for tourism. It can wish to assign some of the tourist tax to resort infrastructure, but then puts a clamp on the means of doing this. Joined-up thinking? It most certainly is not.
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Taking The Pea: Legumes and diet
In "Rivers of Gold", Hugh Thomas's epic study of the rise of the Spanish Empire, the author paints a picture of court life at Santa Fe prior to the siege of Granada in 1491. He describes the advisers to the monarchs and asks his readers to "imagine all these men dining together daily ... over biscuits, stews, fortified wine and chickpeas".
The humble chickpea. It has been a staple of the Spanish diet for centuries. Along with other legumes, it remains so. The Mediterranean diet, listed by Unesco last year as an aspect of "intangible cultural heritage of humanity", includes legumes as one of its principal characteristics.
Legumes, lentils in particular, used to be something of a joke food in the UK. They were associated with the wacky-baccy, vegetarian brigade; the lentil's comedic value was no better expressed than by hippy Neil in "The Young Ones". I myself had, on more than one occasion, to nod in earnest approval as a supper of nut roast and lentil bake was served to a group of us sitting cross-legged on a living-room floor while the Incredible String Band plinkety-plonked from the record-player. "Yea, really nice" would be intoned as thoughts turned to pie and chips. It took the importing of culinary culture, and the likes therefore of tarka dal and humous, to make the lentil and the chickpea be seen as not just representative of alternative lifestyles.
In Mallorca and Spain, the lentil and other legumes never suffered such a reputation for alternativism. Yet for all that the legume has been in the mainstream for so long, there is conflicting evidence as to its enduring appeal.
The Spanish market for legumes is said to be the largest anywhere in Europe. So great would the demand appear to be that domestic production can't cope; they are imported from Canada, Turkey, Argentina, the US and Australia. However, and despite the legume's place in the Mediterranean diet, it fell out of fashion to such an extent that it was being said that it had become the "forgotten" element of the diet.
Recently, fears had been expressed as to the decline in the consumption of legumes and to a consequently less healthy diet. In truth though, the decline had been occurring since the late 60s. The years of economic bonanza had changed eating habits, and the peasant style of the legume didn't fit with a more aspirational and eventually fast-food society. Menus of the day, and their traditional provision of square and balanced meals, were singled out for failing to include legumes.
This, though, was before the crisis took hold. Legume consumption suddenly shot up. In 2009 it was reported that an increase in the sale of legumes was the highest for 50 years; it was up by 10%. Though consumption per person - 4.2 kilograms a year - was not back to the levels of the sixties, it was not difficult to understand why there was a revival in the legume's popularity. Go into any supermarket and you'll find jars of lentils, chickpeas and beans - all at dirt-cheap prices. But the renewed popularity hasn't been distributed evenly across Spain; Mallorca and the Balearics have one of the lowest levels of consumption.
Despite this, legumes remain an important crop for Mallorca's farmers. Apart from legumes being the source of high protein, legume plants are highly valued by farmers for their capacity to replenish soil thanks to their production of nitrogen and the reduction in the cost of fertiliser. They play a significant role in the management of agricultural land. And for this reason, the fact that this winter's weather has been generally benign is good news. Moderate rainfalls and only a couple of light frosts have not disrupted more or less perfect conditions for sowing.
Current optimism for the legume harvest may yet turn along with the weather; and it has been ominously benign. Concerns as to what the weather might yet bring have been expressed in press reports about not only legume production, but also the potato crops. This reporting is one of the, if you like, quainter features of Mallorca. It comes in the wake of the strange story about artichokes being stolen from fincas in Sa Pobla and Muro, and reflects a world that is far removed from the tourist image of the island and indeed from the image that many who live in Mallorca have of the island. But it also reflects the enduring importance of agriculture.
How long the legume will endure is another matter. Its crisis-driven re-emergence has not been as strong in Mallorca as it has been in other parts of Spain, and in Mallorca the shift towards different types of food has been more marked than in much of the country. Mallorca shares with Madrid, Catalonia and other more cosmopolitan areas a greater liking for fast food, one that doesn't sit easily with the legume.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The humble chickpea. It has been a staple of the Spanish diet for centuries. Along with other legumes, it remains so. The Mediterranean diet, listed by Unesco last year as an aspect of "intangible cultural heritage of humanity", includes legumes as one of its principal characteristics.
Legumes, lentils in particular, used to be something of a joke food in the UK. They were associated with the wacky-baccy, vegetarian brigade; the lentil's comedic value was no better expressed than by hippy Neil in "The Young Ones". I myself had, on more than one occasion, to nod in earnest approval as a supper of nut roast and lentil bake was served to a group of us sitting cross-legged on a living-room floor while the Incredible String Band plinkety-plonked from the record-player. "Yea, really nice" would be intoned as thoughts turned to pie and chips. It took the importing of culinary culture, and the likes therefore of tarka dal and humous, to make the lentil and the chickpea be seen as not just representative of alternative lifestyles.
In Mallorca and Spain, the lentil and other legumes never suffered such a reputation for alternativism. Yet for all that the legume has been in the mainstream for so long, there is conflicting evidence as to its enduring appeal.
The Spanish market for legumes is said to be the largest anywhere in Europe. So great would the demand appear to be that domestic production can't cope; they are imported from Canada, Turkey, Argentina, the US and Australia. However, and despite the legume's place in the Mediterranean diet, it fell out of fashion to such an extent that it was being said that it had become the "forgotten" element of the diet.
Recently, fears had been expressed as to the decline in the consumption of legumes and to a consequently less healthy diet. In truth though, the decline had been occurring since the late 60s. The years of economic bonanza had changed eating habits, and the peasant style of the legume didn't fit with a more aspirational and eventually fast-food society. Menus of the day, and their traditional provision of square and balanced meals, were singled out for failing to include legumes.
This, though, was before the crisis took hold. Legume consumption suddenly shot up. In 2009 it was reported that an increase in the sale of legumes was the highest for 50 years; it was up by 10%. Though consumption per person - 4.2 kilograms a year - was not back to the levels of the sixties, it was not difficult to understand why there was a revival in the legume's popularity. Go into any supermarket and you'll find jars of lentils, chickpeas and beans - all at dirt-cheap prices. But the renewed popularity hasn't been distributed evenly across Spain; Mallorca and the Balearics have one of the lowest levels of consumption.
Despite this, legumes remain an important crop for Mallorca's farmers. Apart from legumes being the source of high protein, legume plants are highly valued by farmers for their capacity to replenish soil thanks to their production of nitrogen and the reduction in the cost of fertiliser. They play a significant role in the management of agricultural land. And for this reason, the fact that this winter's weather has been generally benign is good news. Moderate rainfalls and only a couple of light frosts have not disrupted more or less perfect conditions for sowing.
Current optimism for the legume harvest may yet turn along with the weather; and it has been ominously benign. Concerns as to what the weather might yet bring have been expressed in press reports about not only legume production, but also the potato crops. This reporting is one of the, if you like, quainter features of Mallorca. It comes in the wake of the strange story about artichokes being stolen from fincas in Sa Pobla and Muro, and reflects a world that is far removed from the tourist image of the island and indeed from the image that many who live in Mallorca have of the island. But it also reflects the enduring importance of agriculture.
How long the legume will endure is another matter. Its crisis-driven re-emergence has not been as strong in Mallorca as it has been in other parts of Spain, and in Mallorca the shift towards different types of food has been more marked than in much of the country. Mallorca shares with Madrid, Catalonia and other more cosmopolitan areas a greater liking for fast food, one that doesn't sit easily with the legume.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Farmer Was The Last Of His Kind
The former mayor of Muro, Jaume Perelló, explained in a valedictory interview that the golf course in Muro represented a further diversification of the local economy away from just farming. The other day I mentioned the renovations that are due to occur at the ethnology museum in the town, the one devoted to life as it was before tourism. As if to emphasise the one-time overriding significance of agriculture to the town, reinforcing Perelló's point, a local archivist, Sebastià Riutort, has conducted a major project to collect, clean and restore, and classify documents related to the farming co-operative of Muro. In total, the documents occupy 19 metres of shelf space. It is an extraordinary example of diligent historical record-keeping and an important collection of primary source material for study by historians and others with an interest in not only Muro's but the island's past.
"The Diario" reports on this archive, one that charts the founding and history of the "Cooperativa Agricola Murense". In historical terms, the co-operative is of relatively recent origin, but this makes it even more powerful a subject for historical record and scrutiny as, until the 1970s, Muro, a town with no port or seafront as such up to that time, was wholly an agrarian economy and as the actual year of the founding was 1937. The co-operative was a thing, therefore, of the Civil War and of the Franco era and administrative philosophy; in the same year a similar co-operative was established in neighbouring Sa Pobla. Neither event was insignificant in terms of the post-Civil War economy of Spain and in terms of how work was organised under Franco. To appreciate this significance, it is necessary to understand that the Spanish economy for 20 years after the end of the Civil War was an autarky, in other words a self-sufficient economy that substituted imports with everything produced internally, regardless of cost or productivity. It was not until the Stabilisation Plan of 1959, largely crafted by technocrats from Opus Dei, that Spain moved towards something of a functioning capitalist economy. The Muro co-operative was but one element of that autarky, and the archive contains records of the relationship with organisations such as that which centrally regulated the potato and sweet potato business in the Balearics. Just how closely the co-operative was associated with Franco can be recognised in one of its statutes, which refers to farmers making Spain "one, great and free", and in the documentation of a meeting in 1940 when the assembly rose and offered cries of "Franco, Franco, Franco".
Together with the ethnology museum development, this archive suggests that, in Muro at any rate, history is, if not alive exactly then very real and well. Thoroughly laudable and outstanding examples of preserving local culture and history.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The connection was The Marx Brothers and so - "Animal Crackers", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKC7jOGAyQ. Today's title - this comes from something of a protest song by someone rocking in the free world.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
"The Diario" reports on this archive, one that charts the founding and history of the "Cooperativa Agricola Murense". In historical terms, the co-operative is of relatively recent origin, but this makes it even more powerful a subject for historical record and scrutiny as, until the 1970s, Muro, a town with no port or seafront as such up to that time, was wholly an agrarian economy and as the actual year of the founding was 1937. The co-operative was a thing, therefore, of the Civil War and of the Franco era and administrative philosophy; in the same year a similar co-operative was established in neighbouring Sa Pobla. Neither event was insignificant in terms of the post-Civil War economy of Spain and in terms of how work was organised under Franco. To appreciate this significance, it is necessary to understand that the Spanish economy for 20 years after the end of the Civil War was an autarky, in other words a self-sufficient economy that substituted imports with everything produced internally, regardless of cost or productivity. It was not until the Stabilisation Plan of 1959, largely crafted by technocrats from Opus Dei, that Spain moved towards something of a functioning capitalist economy. The Muro co-operative was but one element of that autarky, and the archive contains records of the relationship with organisations such as that which centrally regulated the potato and sweet potato business in the Balearics. Just how closely the co-operative was associated with Franco can be recognised in one of its statutes, which refers to farmers making Spain "one, great and free", and in the documentation of a meeting in 1940 when the assembly rose and offered cries of "Franco, Franco, Franco".
Together with the ethnology museum development, this archive suggests that, in Muro at any rate, history is, if not alive exactly then very real and well. Thoroughly laudable and outstanding examples of preserving local culture and history.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The connection was The Marx Brothers and so - "Animal Crackers", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKC7jOGAyQ. Today's title - this comes from something of a protest song by someone rocking in the free world.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, May 23, 2008
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Oh well, so all is ok. The weather may have been somewhat iffy this month but at least the four months of the year were good - statistically speaking. Ho hum, here we go again. The silly statistics season. Not that it is a season, it is all-year, a hardy annual. But during those first four months, the total number of visitors to he Balearics was up by 1.5 %. Champagne-corking time indeed. Ah, but wait. Put the champagne back on ice and settle for a Vimto. In April, there was a decrease of 2.4 %. You see, statistics can tell you all sorts of stories. April is close to May. Generally speaking, it is the month before May. Maybe that decrease is more telling than the cheery numbers taken across the whole of the first third of the year. Anyway, despite the economic gloom back in the UK, it is the UK market that is keeping the Balearics buoyant. There was a 3.7% increase in the number of Brits from January to April.
The problem is, however much the figures are spun, and there is a love affair with statistical evidence as to the splendid number of visitors, there are also the numbers and the anecdotal evidence regarding the visitors' spend. This is more important than the totals coming into the islands. Those totals are used as means of self-congratulation, but they disguise the real tourist economy.
I am unaware of any figures yet for spend this year, but I was chatting today to someone who, anecdotally admittedly, probably has a decent handle on how things are this season. He is one of the few PRs knocking around Alcúdia. He's been doing it for years. His first words to me today were: "hard work, mate, bloody hard work". "How come?" "No money, mate. No one's spending. The pound and euro."
This comes as absolutely no surprise. Combine the weak pound with the economic problems back in the UK and you have the conditions for weak spend as well.
And then there is the hard work that is being caused by the weather. Go to forums at the moment and there is considerable anxiety among those coming over the next week or so and even into the middle of June. Ever since it became possible to see weather forecasts so easily, the visitor has become a nervous wreck, checking those forecasts by the day and fretting over what to pack, what to do if it rains, and even whether to cancel. Now I don't wish to diminish the importance of the weather. Of course people want sun, but, in a way, all that information, all that ease of information, has just led to worry; worry that didn't exist in the good old days when you got on a plane and listened intently to the pilot telling you it was 75 degrees or whatever. My take on all the current forecasts is that, though cloud and rain is being shown for a few days yet, there may be occasional showers, but that generally it will be fine, sunny and warm. Yesterday was like that. Rain in the morning. Good by midday and then for the rest of the day.
There is another take on the rain that we've been having. It's good for gardens and farmers. The editor of "The Bulletin" made a point of this, saying that he finally said to a taxi-driver who was commenting on the benefits of the rain for farmers, that he was sick of hearing this and that we need good weather for the far more important economic sector that is tourism. He's right, but the taxi-driver wasn't necessarily right. That rain has been a disaster for some involved in the market gardening sector - the potato-growers in particular. There is a real concern in the centre of the potato - Sa Pobla - as to how well exports will be this year because of the rain. The fact is that the rain is generally not important. Go through the centres of farming and market gardening and there are always sprinklers; water, artifically applied, is what much of the agricultural community uses. Rain, at least rain at this time of the year, is of questionable value. So, could someone just stop it. Stop it raining that is.
QUIZ
Chain - "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" to The Mamas and The Papas, to "Creeque Alley" and so McGuinn and McGuire. So how do you get from Roger McGuinn to the great British film "The Innocents"? Yesterday's title - Mary Hopkin. Today's title - who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The problem is, however much the figures are spun, and there is a love affair with statistical evidence as to the splendid number of visitors, there are also the numbers and the anecdotal evidence regarding the visitors' spend. This is more important than the totals coming into the islands. Those totals are used as means of self-congratulation, but they disguise the real tourist economy.
I am unaware of any figures yet for spend this year, but I was chatting today to someone who, anecdotally admittedly, probably has a decent handle on how things are this season. He is one of the few PRs knocking around Alcúdia. He's been doing it for years. His first words to me today were: "hard work, mate, bloody hard work". "How come?" "No money, mate. No one's spending. The pound and euro."
This comes as absolutely no surprise. Combine the weak pound with the economic problems back in the UK and you have the conditions for weak spend as well.
And then there is the hard work that is being caused by the weather. Go to forums at the moment and there is considerable anxiety among those coming over the next week or so and even into the middle of June. Ever since it became possible to see weather forecasts so easily, the visitor has become a nervous wreck, checking those forecasts by the day and fretting over what to pack, what to do if it rains, and even whether to cancel. Now I don't wish to diminish the importance of the weather. Of course people want sun, but, in a way, all that information, all that ease of information, has just led to worry; worry that didn't exist in the good old days when you got on a plane and listened intently to the pilot telling you it was 75 degrees or whatever. My take on all the current forecasts is that, though cloud and rain is being shown for a few days yet, there may be occasional showers, but that generally it will be fine, sunny and warm. Yesterday was like that. Rain in the morning. Good by midday and then for the rest of the day.
There is another take on the rain that we've been having. It's good for gardens and farmers. The editor of "The Bulletin" made a point of this, saying that he finally said to a taxi-driver who was commenting on the benefits of the rain for farmers, that he was sick of hearing this and that we need good weather for the far more important economic sector that is tourism. He's right, but the taxi-driver wasn't necessarily right. That rain has been a disaster for some involved in the market gardening sector - the potato-growers in particular. There is a real concern in the centre of the potato - Sa Pobla - as to how well exports will be this year because of the rain. The fact is that the rain is generally not important. Go through the centres of farming and market gardening and there are always sprinklers; water, artifically applied, is what much of the agricultural community uses. Rain, at least rain at this time of the year, is of questionable value. So, could someone just stop it. Stop it raining that is.
QUIZ
Chain - "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" to The Mamas and The Papas, to "Creeque Alley" and so McGuinn and McGuire. So how do you get from Roger McGuinn to the great British film "The Innocents"? Yesterday's title - Mary Hopkin. Today's title - who?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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