The campaign was successful, and many German supermarkets withdrew the offending strawberries, replacing them with strawberries “of German origin.” At this point, nine German members of the country’s environment committee assumed colonialist power of inspection and oversight over the way things are done in Spain, and decided to organize an in situ visit to the region in question, in western Andalusia.
Opponents of the boycott point out that the area in question, the Doñana, gets dried up because of a lack of rainfall and overexploitation of its aquifer owing to illegal wells, not because of strawberry farming: “Ninety-nine percent of our strawberries are irrigated with surface water,” points out Manuel Piedra, secretary general of the Union of Small Farmers of Huelva (UPA). “We are not water wasters,” added Fernando Sanchez, the manager of the irrigators of Palos de la Frontera, “we have a fully computerized and efficient drip irrigation system,” such that farmers do not exceed the limit established by law for water per hectare per year. “It is false that the strawberry industry is exploiting water from illegal sources in the Doñana National Park or that huge amounts of water are pumped,” denounces the Andalusian Interprofessional Association of Strawberry and Red Fruits (Interfresa) in its statement on the matter.
Manuel Delgado, spokesman for the Farmers Association Puerta de Doñana, described the boycott as a “damaging and defamatory campaign,” adding that it was economically motivated.
The socialist-led ruling coalition in Spain, for its part, encouraged this foreign campaign, despite its being harmful to the country’s national interests. Both Sánchez and Environment Minister Ribera have actively supported the strawberry boycott in Germany, perhaps, in part, because the affected region is ruled by the centre-right.
In fact, the arguments marshalled by the German campaign coincided with those of the Spanish government in its opposition to the Andalusian regional government’s plans. No wonder then that, instead of vetoing so brazen a foreign interference in its domestic affairs, the Spanish government applauded the arrival of German auditors.
In questioning Germany’s credentials so far as judging the environmental friendliness of other countries’ practices, non pro-government media have cited the ‘dieselgate’ scandal, during which 700,000 German vehicles were sold in Spain with fraudulent CO2-emission certificates, as well as ecologically harmful projects like the Lützerath mine.
The result has been to turn public opinion against both the government and German products in Spain, including a boycott against Aldi, in which climate the German parliament, for its part, has canceled the trip, citing as its reason not wanting to influence the current electoral campaign.
