127 728
ediciones
Cambios
m
Debemos tener presente que la agricultura bien entendida es un modo de estar en el mundo profundamente ligado We must remember that agriculture, rightly understood, is a la tierra y a la vida y que way of being profoundly tied to the land and life and that it is no es casual que se emplee este mismo verbo tanto para cultivar la tierra como para cultivarse uno mismoaccident that the same verb is used to cultivate the land and to cultivate oneself.
El proceso de modernización de la actividad agrícola ha tenido algo de espejismoThe process to modernise agricultural activity has rather created a mirage. Se partió del principio de que las formas tradicionales de trabajo estaban obsoletas y que se debían alcanzar otras que resultasen más “competitivas”The bottom line was that that traditional ways of working were obsolete and that more “competitive” ones were required. Al parecer nadie pareció percatarse de que la sociedad Nobody seemed to grasp that rural basaba su estrategia de supervivencia en la solidaridad vecinal y que le resultaba un tanto ajena la competitividadsociety based its survival strategy on neighbourhood solidarity and that competitiveness was therefore beyond its mindset. El resultado ha sidoIn the best of cases, en el mejor de los casosthe outcome was towns where the local residents turned their back on agriculture, pueblos en los que los vecinos han abandonado la actividad agrariawhere one farmer would lease or buy up the others’ land and awash with machinery, quedando uno que ha arrendado o comprado las tierras de todos y que cargado de maquinariaand sometimes debts, y produce as much or more than the others had previously produced altogether. This progressively more industrialised and intensive model was increasingly mentally outside the grasp of the local residents and there was always uncertainty about the future of their survival as a veces de deudas, produce tanto o más que lo que antes conseguían entre todos, de un modo progresivamente más intensivo e industrializado, cada vez más alejado mentalmente de sus propios vecinos y que contempla su futuro con la incertidumbre siempre presente de su supervivencia como productorproducer.
Hoy el conocimiento aplicado a la agricultura es de naturaleza técnicaThe know-how applied to agriculture is now technical. Pero no debemos olvidar que dicho conocimiento a veces se halla promovido por intereses comerciales más o menos discretos que lo que pretenden es abrir nuevas formas de negocioYet we must not forget that that knowledge is sometimes driven by more or less discrete commercial interests that seek to open up new business channels. Los agricultores que se oponen a los modelos intensivos e industrializados no solo beben de los saberes tradicionales localesThe farmers that resist the industrialised and intensive models do not only rely on local traditional knowledge. La misma red de información mundial que permite el trasiego de las técnicas punteras de la agroindustria posibilita el acceso a múltiples conocimientos y experiencias campesinas ligadas a la agricultura familiarThe same global information network that allows the dissemination of cutting-edge techniques of the agribusiness also provides access to different farming expertise and experiences linked to family-run agriculture.
Los productores rurales sufrieron tempranamente los efectos de la globalización económica y de la ruptura de los mercados locales que conllevóThe impact of economic globalisation and the ensuing breaking up of local markets hit rural producers early on. De ahí que no sea extraño que su respuesta de oposición haya sido globalThere is therefore nothing strange in their response of opposition, pero a diferencia de la tendencia uniformadora de los mercados económicos y la agroindustriabut unlike the trend towards standardisation of the agribusiness and economic markets, la de aquellos aspira al respeto de la diversidad de cultivos y culturasthose rural producers aspired to respect the diversity of crops and cultures.
Paralelo al paulatino crecimiento en tamaño de las explotaciones agrícolasIn tandem to the gradual increase in the size of the agricultural holdings, aumenta también el número de personas que abandonan la actividad agraria dada su creciente complejidadthe number of people leaving farming is also rising given its growing complexity, escasa rentabilidad y carencia de descendientes que tengan interés por sucederles cuando lleguen low profitability and a la edad de jubilaciónlack of a new generation willing to take over when the older generation reaches retirement. Pero eso no conlleva que arrinconen definitivamente el trabajo con la tierraHowever, por lo regular siguen produciendo alimentos para la casa en alguna huerta o terreno más próximo this does not mean that they have completely turned their back on working with the land and they often continue to produce food for the household in a la mismanearby vegetable garden or plot. En el ámbito atlántico donde el fenómeno ha sido parejo pero con la ganadería, también son muchos los que continúan cultivando una huertaThere are also many people who continue to keep a vegetable garden in the Atlantic-facing area which has undergone a similar phenomenon but with livestock.
Durante los tiempos de bonanza económica se observa un retroceso en esta actividad hortícolaA decline in market gardening is seen in times of economic prosperity as the work required is not offset by the opportunity to produce a variety of food, ya que no compensa el esfuerzo que conlleva este trabajo con las posibilidades para adquirir variados alimentosbut during an economic downturn, pero cuando se producen períodos de crisis económica se reactiva la producción doméstica de comida que contribuya there is a compensar la caída de los ingresos familiaresreturn to producing food at home as it helps to offset the drop in family income.
En las crisis también se produce un regreso During difficult economic times, there is also a las actividades agrarias por quienes las habían abandonado por sectores que ofrecían mayor rentabilidad pero que soportan peor los períodos de declive económicoreturn to agriculture by the people who had left it to work in sectors offering greater financial rewards but which are more badly hit by periods of economic decline. En ese sentido la tierra siempre ha supuesto una garantía de supervivenciaIn this regard, the land has always provided a guarantee of survival.
En los últimos tiempos también se observa una incorporación A recent trend has also been seen of young people with or without a la actividad agraria de jóvenes con un lejano vínculo familiar con el campo o carente de éldistant family tie to the countryside deciding to work in agriculture. No pueden acceder They are unable to access a una actividad agraria profesional tal y como se entiende hoy en día ya que tienen muy difícil el acceso a la tierra y además requieren inversiones económicas tan cuantiosas que quedan fuera de su alcanceprofessional agriculture venture as understood today as they find it very difficult to access the land and the huge financial investments required are beyond their grasp. Se suelen dedicar They usually work in market-gardening for their own supplies and obtain a actividades hortícolas con las que se autoabastecen y obtienen un excedente que suelen vender en mercados localessurplus that they usually sell in local markets. Lo habitual es que se dediquen a esta actividad productora con técnicas encuadradas en la agricultura ecológicaIt is common to find that they use organic farming techniques in their activity.
Otra razón que anima a la gente que dispone de tierra a cultivar sus propios alimentos es por “saber qué comen”Another reason that encourages people with land to grow their own food is “to know what they are eating”, es decirin other words, por controlar en la medida de lo posible la producción de los alimentos que consumen ante la duda creciente que generan los métodos empleados por la agroindustriato control the production of the food they eat as far as possible given the ever-mounting doubts about the methods used by agribusiness.
En este sentido se observan movimientos pendulares en los que se recuperan viejas prácticas si bienIn this regard, como es lógicopendulum swings have been seen where old practices are recovered even though, adaptadas a los tiempos modernosas is logical, they are adapted to modern times. Cuando a finales de los años 1980 concluimos el primer tomo del When the first volume of the Atlas dedicado a la alimentación domésticaon household food was completed at the end of the 1980s, ya se había abandonado la elaboración casera del panbread was no longer being made at home. La fabricación de este alimento ha experimentado desde entonces un progresivo proceso de “industrialización” que además de su abaratamiento ha acarreado una That food staple became part of a progressive “industrialisation” process that resulted in lower costs but also in a notable pérdida de calidadloss of quality. Como reacciónThis has led in recent years to a resurgence of artisan bread-making, en los últimos años se observa un resurgimiento de la elaboración artesanal del pan, con harinas muy parecidas a las que se utilizaron antaño y recurriendo incluso a la vieja práctica de la “masa madre”with very similar flours to those used in the past and even going back to the “sourdough” technique.
En la periferia de algunos municipios de carácter urbano se han acondicionado huertos con todos los requerimientos necesarios para poder cultivarlos y que son distribuidos entre las personas interesadasAllotments, ready to grow crops and which are allocated to the people signing up for the scheme, have been set up on the outskirts of some towns. Son la versión controlada y ordenada de una tendencia que siempre ha existido en los alrededores de las ciudades y de los núcleos de población importantes donde eran aprovechados los pedazos de tierra abandonados como lugares de cultivoThey are the organised and controlled version of a trend that has always existed around the cities and large towns where vegetables were grown on abandoned plots of land, por lo general por gentes que habían emigrado a los mismos desde el campousually by people who had migrated to the urban areas from the country. Las propias localidadesIn the past, towns, incluso las importantesand even large ones, contaron en el pasado con huertas donde cultivaban productos para consumo propio y su recuerdo ha quedado reflejado en la toponimia y en los nombres de algunas calleshad market garden where produce was cultivated for their own consumption and that is still reflected in place and street names.
En definitiva vivimos tiempos de profundos cambiosIn short, we live in times of far-reaching changes. La agricultura tradicional que aquí se describeThe traditional agriculture described here, en buena medida conservada tan solo en la memoria de nuestros informantes de mayor edadand which only remains in the memory of our elderly informants, tiene los días contadoshas seen its day. Sobrevive una agricultura profesionalizada cada vez más intensiva e industrializada y más dependiente de avatares políticos y económicos dictados muy lejos de los campos de laborAn increasingly more intensive and industrialised professionalised agriculture, and which is very dependent on the economic and political vicissitudes from the land itself, will survive. Pero a juzgar por los movimientos que se resisten a darlo todo por perdidoYet to judge from the movements that refuse to give up, it does not seem that this activity, no parece que esta actividadthis way of life, este modo de vidaso closely linked to our history and to our territory, tan ligado is going to totally disappear. This volume seeks to record that our rural folk and our ancestors knew and practiced agriculture on a nuestra historia y more human scale and from a nuestro territoriomore holistic approach, vaya a extinguirse. Sirva este volumen para dejar constancia de que nuestra gente del campo y sus antepasados conocieron y practicaron una agricultura cuya escala era más humana y con una visión más holísticawhere not only the yield is taken into account, but also the complex network of physical factors and human beings involved in an activity that, in short, donde no solo se tenía en cuenta el rendimiento sino también la compleja red de factores físicos y seres vivos implicados en una actividad que en definitiva se basa en cultivar la vida que nos da alimentois based on cultivating the life that feeds us.{{DISPLAYTITLE: Consideraciones generales sobre la agriculturaGeneral remarks on agriculture}}{{#bookTitle:Agricultura en Vasconia Agriculture in the Basque Country| Agricultura_en_vasconia/en}}
Texto reemplazado: «Labayru Fundazioa: fondo» por «Labayru Fundazioa: Fondo»
<languages></languages>
=== Contents of the book ===
The workforce is also analysed, along with the importance of all the members of the family being involved in the agricultural work, regardless of their age or sex and neighbours working together. As regards the Mediterranean-facing side, the contracting of day workers is covered, particularly at harvest time, given the area involved and the speed at which the crops had to be gathered. The importance of animal power is also described, particularly at a time when the machinery as we know it today had still not appeared.
[[File:8.1_Faneuse_1896._Oleo_de_Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|500px|Faneuse, 1896. Óleo de Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924). Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 46.]]
There is a chapter on animal transport, particularly the ox cart given the key role it played, along with the yoke and all the accessories needed to harness the pair of cattle. The last chapter in this block addresses the mechanisation of agriculture and the changes that modern machinery have meant to farming.
Given the age of the informants and that part of the information was gathered decades ago, we have focused on farming from the end of the 19th to the mid-20th century.
[[File:8.3_Laietan_Zeanurin_(B)_1920.png|framecenter|600px|Laietan Zeanurin (B), 1920. Fuente: Archivo Fotográfico Labayru Fundazioa: fondo Fondo Felipe Manterola.]]
That farming was family-run, involved all members of the homestead regardless of their age or sex and focused on self-sufficiency or at least as far as it could.
That knowledge was not a rigid, but rather a permeable body of expertise, as the person who cultivated the land was always open to trying new seeds and even techniques, but from empiricism that meant checking that it worked. Despite the disdain shown by modern society, that knowledge was scientific to a certain extent as it was based on the technique of trial and error. Furthermore, it was accumulative as the knowledge gained by each generation was added to the received expertise and passed on to the following one. Thanks to this accumulated knowledge, each family also knew which part of its land was best for each type of crop.
[[File:8.5_Recolte_des_betteraves_fin_du_XIXe_siecle._Huile_d’Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|600px|Récolte des betteraves, fin du XIXe siècle. Huile d’Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924)''. Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 35.]]
[[File:8.7_Desherbage_late_19th_century._Oil_painting_by_Emile_Claus.png|framecenter|600px|Désherbage, late 19th century. Oil painting by Émile Claus. Fuente: ''Émile Claus'' (1849-1924)''. Paris: Bibliothèque de l Image, 2013, p. 43.]]
This know-how came from the deep-rooted link that was established with the land. In the case of an economy based on self-sufficiency, there was no other option than to respect the land, as their very livelihood depended on it. In fact, unlike what happens today with agricultural fields, exposed to erosion and to the buildup of chemical waste, arable land in the past gradually improved with years of work and the best land was considered to be that which had been ploughed for generations.
Many of the holdings, particularly those that have to pay rent to lease land, would run at a loss without the CAP grants and a previously unknown situation of dependency has thus been created. The downside is the strict control of the farmer who has to comply with all the administrative red-tape or facing paying a fine. There is a huge difference between the relative freedom that farmers enjoyed in previous decades and the crop control of today, as practically all their activity is regulated.
[[File:8.6_Arracheuse_de_betteraves._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Arracheuse de betteraves. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
For example, farmers are currently required to leave part of their holding to fallow land or to use protein crops that add nitrogen to the ground, such as legumes, for which they receive a specific agri-environmental grant, on top of the general one for all crops. All the holdings of over 15 hectares have to earmark at least 5 % of the total to ecological focus areas: fallow, nitrogen-fixing crops, wooded areas and/or agroforestry. Furthermore, in order to diversify the crops, the CAP requires holdings under 30 hectares to plant at least two different crops, with the main crop occupying less than 75 % of the total; and holdings larger than three different crops with the two main ones occupying less than 95 % and the largest of them less than 75 % of the total.
In turn, the degree of complexity being achieved by the different authorities is reflected in the extensive legislation being enacted and in the complicated jargon that the farmers have to deal with. One example is the following paragraph which explains how to implement what is technically known as the “convergence” of the latest CAP reform, which covers the second half of the present decade:
[[File:8.2_Cosechadora_automotriz_de_cereal._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Cosechadora automotriz de cereal. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
[[File:8.8_Application_of_herbicides_in_lettuce._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Application of herbicides in lettuce. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
“Furthermore, it should be noted that the provisional values of the entitlements hereby notified are affected by convergence, in other words, a phased approach is calculated of the initial unit value to the regional average value in 5 identical phases from 2015 to 2015. Should the value of your entitlements be under 90 % of the average value for your region, they shall be progressively increased in order to reach in 2019 the increment standing at a third of the difference between your average and 90 % of the average for the region. However, should the value of your entitlements be under the average for the region, this convergence shall be funded by reducing the value of the payment entitlements whose value is over the average in 2019, with the maximum reduction being set at 30 % of the nominal value. If, after calculating the upward convergence, your payment entitlements are still under 60 % of the average for the region in 2019, they shall be raised to that 60 % of the average in 2019, unless that means the donors suffering losses over 30 %, in which case they shall be shifted towards 60 % even if they do not reach it. Finally, if the value of your entitlements is between 90 % and the average of the region, they will not be affected by this convergence process”<ref>Paragraph taken from a notification sent to all producers of the Basque Autonomous Community by the Agriculture and Livestock Directorate of the Basque Government’s Ministry of Economic Development and Competitiveness in 2015.</ref>.
It should also be noted that in tandem to the decrease in the number of people working in agriculture, groups of producers of all type have flourished and have resulted in the organisational structures of the authorities related to this activity becoming more complex.
[[File:8.4_Zizel-goldearekin_goldaketan._Argandoña_(A)_2003.png|framecenter|600px|Zizel-goldearekin goldaketan. Argandoña (A), 2003. Fuente: Juan José Galdos, Grupos Etniker Euskalerria.]]
Food self-sufficiency has decreased in rural areas to such an extent that the percentage of food bought from the agri-food industry is increasingly greater even in the homes of farm food producers. The weight that local produce has in the food of urban areas is practically nonexistent. A widening gap with the origin of the food consumed has also been observed. The response has been to run awareness-raising campaigns among consumers to highlight the importance of locally-sourced produce and some agricultural organisations defend concepts such as the so-called “food sovereignty”.
The prevalence of the urban over the rural world is symbolically reflected in the former calling “soil” what the latter calls “land”.