The primary sector is going through bad times. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the reactivation recorded in the middle of the quarantine turned into a mere mirage within months. The truth is that activities such as agriculture and animal husbandry, especially those related to animal husbandry, have long been an endless journey into the desert, according to the latest figures released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). And according to these data, The state of Alicante has lost at least 630 farms in the last decadeThis represents almost a third of the total and around 50,000 cattle. A trend that has accelerated in recent months as a result of rising costs and puts businesses in a frontier situation.
The latest livestock census paints a picture that is somewhat less than bleak. In 2009, there were a total of 1,590 farms in the province of Alicante, housing 1,00,826 animals as a whole. The situation had changed radically in 2020, when there were 960 farms with 951,175 animals. The real downfall for farms is the monopoly of poultry., after increasing from 549 to 111, the holdings of main rabbits fell from 203 to 22 followed. Then came the sheep from 334 to 306 and pigs from 49 to 33. On the opposite side, the hives, growing from 79 to 100; goats, 316 to 324; and cattle, from 60 to 64.
Juan Luis Gimeno, vice-president of Asaja Alicante and head of a goat farm in the municipality of Monóvar, said, “The decline over the last decade is significant, but speaking again two years later, I am sure that at least 600 more farms have disappeared”. And in his view, the future of animal husbandry does not currently exist. “First of all – he emphasizes – we need to address a problem that we have been dwelling on for a long time. lack of generational change. It is an extremely altruistic job, because there are no days off. Young people are looking for other career opportunities.”
The other problem is the lack of profitability, exacerbated by the extraordinary rise in electricity, fuel and feed prices. “The increase in prices we dragged due to the pandemic, Made worse by the war in Ukraine, so much that we can’t even afford the costs. At the moment, activity cannot be carried out, cannot be supported”, he complains.
María Tornero, who runs a goat farm with her father in Elda, agrees. In his words, after strong cost increases in recent months, “you have to really love livestock to move forward because the outlook is extremely complex.”
Manolo Genís from La Unió, who runs two poultry farms in the municipality of Gorga, also refers to himself in similar terms. “The rise of electricity and natural gas does not stop, while contracts remain as before without increasing a penny. Right now we’re just working to get paid but if things keep getting worse we’ll have no choice but to close it,” he complains.
The activity goes through a process of concentration
In the province of Alicante, the livestock sector is going through a process of concentration, as it is at the national level. Although it is true that the number of heads has decreased, there is no more meaningful parallel with the number of farms closed. The most obvious example is poultry farms, as in 2009 there were 549 with 790,000 specimens and only 111 were counted at the last census, but with a fairly similar number of heads it stands at 747,923. Juan Luis Gimeno, the industry’s representative at Asaja, attributes this to the pursuit of profitability, something that has not yet emerged in any case.