El Ejido
El Ejido is a municipality located in the province of Almería in the community of Andalusia, Spain. Also referred to as the ‘Plastic Sea’, greenhouses cover an area of 31,000 hectares (76,600 acres) for the cultivation of crops such as tomatoes, peppers.
The greenhouses in El Ejido play a crucial role in the local economy, providing a controlled environment for year-round cultivation and protection of crops from the harsh weather conditions. The use of greenhouses allows farmers in the region to achieve higher yields and maintain consistent production throughout the year.
The greenhouses now produce between 2.5 million and 3.5 million tons of fruits and vegetables per year, making them a major source of off-season tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons for Europe's major supermarkets.
Due to the barren and arid nature of the area, El Ejido employs heavy use of pesticides, imported soil and grow bags.
The area suffers massive plastic waste issues, when greenhouses become infertile they are abandoned, and the plastic that covers it being left to blow and disintegrate in the wind. With most ending up littering the coastline and roadsides.
El Ejido is home to around 100,000 migrant workers that live in slums around the greenhouses. There have been multiple cases of breeches in human rights, including working temperatures sometimes exceeding 45 degrees Celsius and wages being well under minimum wage (around £4.50) per hour. The legal status of most workers is also not guaranteed, often leading to deportation or exploitation.
The white-roofed greenhouse cover such a vast area that the University of Almeria have found that by reflecting sunlight back into the atmosphere, the greenhouses are actually cooling the province. While temperatures in the rest of Spain have climbed at rates above the world average, the local temperature has dropped an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius every 10 years since 1983.
It's easy to demonise this visual spectacle, an obvious culprit and bad guy. However, the existence of this phenomenon is purely down to our expectations and consumption habits. We go to our weekly food shop mid-winter and expect to be able to purchase products such as tomatoes and peppers. We see Spain on the packaging, and romanticized images of a lone Spaniard in their mountain farm collecting tomatoes spring to mind. We think ‘Spain’s not so far away’, and when we compare it with the Avocado we just put in our basket from Central America, it feels like were making a good choice.