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In today's spotlight, we delve into the clash between Spanish strawberry growers and a German consumer group’s campaign. Let’s dive into it.

Berry-ing the Impact

German campaign groups are up in arms over Spanish strawberry growers. No, they don’t just hate strawberries (but seriously why would you ever put a strawberry in a salad?!).

They’re upset because these strawberries are grown from illegitimate water sources that threaten to worsen drought across Europe.

Donana, the region where these strawberries are being grown, is a wetland heavily threatened by climate change. The Andalusian government, the regional government in charge of the area, has proposed repealing regulation which has made accessing these waters illegal. It’s like the purge but for farmers - no rules baby.

Informal wells in the area that draw from the Wetlands were banned in a 2014 law. Since that law came in to place, 700 of these wells have been closed but hundreds still exist. They are hard to find and intentionally concealed by a number of smaller scale farmers.

These farmers specifically grow strawberries, with one of their biggest markets being exports to Germany. Last year, Spain made up the majority of the 196m Euros of strawberries imported to Germany. In other words, German campaign groups are calling out German consumers - they’re arguing that you can’t have your cake and eat it too, your Strawberry cake of course.

Water scarcity is one of the hottest topics (no pun intended) in Europe as the temperatures are rising faster there than any other continent. Critics argue that this new move could drain the area and have a wider impact across Europe. With 35% of Spain currently facing a prolonged drought, the proposed legislation repeal is a massive show of indifference from the regional government towards climate impact.

Political Produce

You didn’t think people would just stand by did you? If there’s one thing we’ve learnt it’s that people love to get mad and in this case, strawberries have done the job.

The central government has begun exerting pressure on the Andalusian government to prevent them from repealing this legislation. It’s getting political as both centres of power are led by different parties with a history of being on opposite sides of issues. On top of this, support is coming from the EU, Germany, and beyond for keeping access to the waters illegal.

More dramatically, Campact, the activist group in Germany, is labelling the berries ‘drought berries’ and calling for European supermarket chains to boycott the fruit coming from suppliers in this region. They’re hoping to push consumers and supermarkets away from the strawberries to prevent German imports and thereby reduce reason for farmers to grow the berries.

The strawberry farmers themselves argue that they are not utilising water from illegal sources within the national park, nor are they excessively pumping water as claimed.

It’s hard to validate the claims made by farmer groups, especially since most the wells are not mapped. However, the repeal process is now going to regional courts with expert biologists on the stand. Let’s hope they’re not biased by their dreams of a summer of strawberries and cream.

Who knew we’d be able to learn so much about climate politics from unsuspecting fruit.

Until next time,

The Strawman