Self feeding the unemployed in Spain

By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe, Practical holistic gardeners authors and speakers living in Spain for 25 years.

The crisis

The number of employed in Spain is unlikely to fall dramatically in the next few years. At present the official unemployed figures are over 20% with the figure for under 25’s being a dramatic 40% plus. Many families are experiencing multiple unemployment and this is affecting RTN reader families and not only Spaniards and non EU immigrants. Figures back in the early 1990’s economic crisis were also high but then without the high immigrant unemployment. But in those days most villages and towns were surrounded by worked vegetable plots, orchards and olive groves and families still grew rabbits and chickens so there were many jobs within family circles to enable unemployed member to be gainfully employed in return for being kept.

Today many expatriates have large gardens wishing it was a little smaller, most apartment terraces are bare, much agricultural land around villages is abandoned and although public and private allotments are appearing few unemployed would be able to fund the euro a day or more being charged for 50 square meters of land.

Gardening initiatives that could help

About eighteen months ago we launched the concept of Gardening Circles where a group of neighbours, family members or friends would get together in brightening up apartment blocks, neighborhoods or growing vegetables. There are signs that some informal and formal circles have been set up but the potential is enormous among the unemployed.

Many youngsters are probably reluctant to start growing their or the families vegetables alone. But if you have spare land and you suggested that an unemployed son or daughter might like to start to grow vegetables or fruit together with a group of friends and that you would pay for spare produce beyond their need the situation might in some cases change.

Alternatively a group of unemployed of all ages might approach the owner of abandoned land and offer to work some of it in return for free vegetables, the land being kept tidy and avoiding it becoming a fire risk.

Since some town halls have started to think about establishing public allotments and subsidized training courses in eco gardening and agriculture a self help Gardening Circle might approach their local mayor to discuss the possibility of joining as a group. With elections coming up the timing might be successful.

And of course an easy action is for those unemployed living in apartments is to start growing vegetables on their terraces in whatever containers they can find that can be hung on walls and railings as well as being stood on the floor. Empty water bottles and milk boxes with the tops cut off are inexpensive starting points.

Growing one’s own food would not only save money but also use time interestingly and productively, Growing Circles among friends would also create comradeship in tough times. Once things start to grow co-producers can set up a paella pan once or twice a week to cook healthy vegetarian paellas with a bag of inexpensive rice sufficient for ten persons and without the expense of meat. But if the group also started to grow rabbits inexpensively fed on freely available herbs from the countryside meat would be affordable and good manure for improving the soil used for growing the vegetables would be free.

Hope these early morning thoughts on a wet Monday morning are interesting to a few. By the way it’s two wet for us to go out and weed our vegetable plot but one can tend containers of vegetables growing on covered terraces whatever the weather and at any time of the day as there is light.

And there are books to help

Clodagh and Dicks books ‘ Growing Healthy Vegetables in Spain ‘ and ‘Apartment Gardening Mediterranean Style’ would be timely presents for unemployed family members and friends interesting in following up the above ideas.

© Clodagh and Dick Handscombe March2011.