This morning we bid farewell to Beja, in South Central
Portugal. Last evening we were warmly
welcomed to the city by the robust and endearing local residents. They eagerly invited us into their late night
restaurants to partake in their conversations and celebrations. In this small city (10,000 residents) they
were eager to converse with the visiting Americans. A ruddy sort of folk with hands callused and
minds engaged by their natural trades- farmers, doctors, builders, accountants,
and shopkeepers all gathered without social class differentiation in the same
establishments- and all had a keen interest in our presence. Language
was a barrier, sometimes crossed with broken words and sentences of part English
and part Portuguese, othertimes by warm gestures and reciprocating smiles.
After sunrise we left from the outskirts of the city (maybe
a village by European standards), and traversed through the remaining
countryside of Southern Portugal on our way to Andalusia (the Southwestern part
of Spain. Rolling hills with Savanna type
cork tree forest was intermittently broken by the occasional field of wheat or
rye. Cattle herds and sheep flocks
looked on as our coach cut through the rural landscape. As we ascended toward the border of Spain,
the landscape looked a little harsher, a cross between the foothills of Appalachia
and the high sagebrush desert of Idaho. Then,
crossing into Spain, the terrain softened and abruptly burst open to reveal a cornucopia
of fruit and vegetable production- almonds, potatoes, olive trees, peas, raspberries,
blueberries, and strawberries. Our farm
visit would focus on strawberries, the principal crop of the area, referred to
once by our guide as “red gold.”
Flor de Donana is a moderate sized strawberry producer in
the area that was a giant in their niche, organic production. Strawberries are a hard crop to farm
organically, but Flor de Donana had been refining their practices for 16
years. Solutions had been developed to
replace chemical applications with beneficial predator insects, natural
additives, and organic fertilizer. From
100 acres of intense strawberry production, they annually market 4 million
kilograms for produce, to all parts of Europe.
Berries were hand picked and placed in crates that would be offered to customers
in grocery stores as far as 750 miles away within 24 hours of being
plucked. Nearly a hundred local workers
pick the strawberries everyday of the production season- from December through
June. July through October the temporary
hoop greenhouses are cover crops are planted in the production fields. After that time, the rows are reshaped, the
greenhouses are rebuilt around them, and the next year’s plants are placed- all
plants used are annual varieties. Interestingly,
all strawberry plants need to be started in greenhouses in the North of Spain,
where they must receive exposure to cold to be programmed correctly. The whole system seemed to be managed very
efficiently. We were able to pick and
sample some of the produce (all we wanted actually!) and the taste and
freshness was excellent.
