The government has also reduced water flow along the Ter River, which rises in the Pyrenees. With these measures, the government is trying “to be more efficient with water and at the same time maintain the level of income of this local economy,” according to Serret, former Minister of Agriculture.
Local environmentalists, however, say that reducing river flow will ultimately harm biodiversity.
For Annelies Broekman, an agronomist and researcher at the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the climate is too often blamed on an actually unsustainable approach to water use.
Water must first fulfill a social role, prioritizing “all life that depends on it, in which we are included,” she said, and then be distributed throughout “the entire chain of functions and values of society”, including economic activities.
“Some say we need to allocate water to the uses that generate the most profitability, and once again, the pigs would win,” she said, warning against “the logic that he who can pay does What he wants “.
Pigs and Coca-Cola
Spanish pork production has doubled in the last decade and it already competes with countries like China and Brazil in the global market. Unsurprisingly, the country ranks first for the number of pigs in the EU, with almost 35 million.
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