The plenary session of the Provincial Council of Granada, at the initiative of the Vox Provincial Group, has unanimously approved a motion in which it has been agreed to promote an institutional declaration in support of the Alpujarra agriculture, its ecological and environmental value, and its importance to avoid rural depopulation, as well as that the governing authorities of the Plans of the National Park and the Natural Park of Sierra Nevada are urged to authorize the placement of anti-hail mesh from June to September at the levels above 900 meters.
The motion has been defended by the provincial deputy of Vox, Cristina Jiménez, so that the Diputación raise this issue to the Ministry of Environment of the Junta de Andalucía, so that it is the Department itself that regulates and allows the use of these meshes in dimensions greater than 900 meters. In addition, given the situation of defenselessness of the farmers, it has urged the suspension of more sanctioning procedures, as well as those already initiated, as long as the normative situation of the anti-hail meshes is clarified.
Cristina Jiménez has stressed “the unique character of the Alpujarra, within a high mountain environment, makes it one of the greatest ecological heritage of the Province. Its climate and its enclave allow that, one of the economic engines of the Alpujarra such as agriculture, are not in need of the use of phytosanitary products, producing crops of high ecological value that are respectful with the environment. But not all are advantages for alpujarreño producers, and it is that, due to the altitude and proximity to Sierra Nevada, hailstorms often occur between September and June, literally sweeping cherry tomatoes, zucchini, beans, peppers and many other crops of farmers in the region. ”
This problem, continues the deputy, is solved with the installation during these months of anti-hail meshes, which work as protective covers; However, the Master Plan of the Natural Park of Sierra Nevada prohibits the permanent installation of these meshes above the 900 meters level, allowing its deployment in the presence of a storm or hailstorm.
The reality is that farmers who are affected by this measure are being subjected to a strenuous situation that is practically impossible to meet, given the unpredictable nature of hailstorms, and given the technical and economic impossibility of continuously assembling and disassembling the mesh. , especially in the farms of greater extension. To make matters worse, the situation derives in the irrational, when farmers are facing severe difficulties to prove the meteorological conditions that justify the installation of the mesh, which could be in the category of anecdotal within the procedural suffering with which Sometimes the administration submits to the administrator, if it were not because the denunciations for these facts are punished with € 3,000 of fine, which are increasing in the measure of the repetition and graduation of the same, since they currently contravene both the Resource Management Plan Sierra Nevada, such as the Master Plan for Use and Management, considering that anti-hail meshes cause a damaging landscape visual impact with the environment.
In recent times it has become fashionable to talk about the so-called 'Empty Spain' to which we intend to provide all kinds of solutions, but, nevertheless, these restrictions against the installation of anti-hail meshes, involve tying hands and feet to farmers of the rural world, while they see how hail destroys their livelihoods, while they are warned that they will be punished with fines starting at € 3,000 if they try to do something to avoid it.
This normative situation is due to an interpretive error, whereby the cover of the anti-hail mesh is equated with the installation of a greenhouse, when neither the material nor the characteristics of one has anything to do with the other, which It places the administration in a position of genuine ignorance in relation to the agricultural sector, but especially places it in a position of insensitivity to the rural world and its people, which it submits with regulations that sometimes far exceed the absurd. So, when we invent a miraculous solution for Empty Spain, let's remember Cádiar, Trevélez, Murtas, Nevada, Juviles, Busquístar, Alpujarra de la Sierra and thus up to seventeen municipalities of the Alpujarra whose inhabitants live largely by agriculture and are affected in their day to day by these restrictions, so that we provide them with less imaginative solutions and more in line with their reality.
In 2017, the now Minister of Development, Marifrán Carazo, registered a letter in the Delegation of the Government of the Junta de Andalucía addressed to Susana Díaz in which the revision of these regulations was urged, without anything being known since then by of the farmers of the Alpujarra, and since now the Popular Party governs in the Junta de Andalucía, from the Provincial Group of VOX we consider it convenient to urge that they now resume this initiative from power.
