March 4 - Madrid, Spain

Today we attended a briefing at the United States Embassy in Madrid.  Madrid is the capitol of Spain and the third largest city in the European Union (E.U.).  Jim Peterson ‘40 and Joe Babb of the U.S. State Department, whom we met in Turkey, arranged this meeting.   We were fortunate to have several presenters.

The first was John Peter Higgins of the Madrid Embassy who discussed economic factors in Spain.  Spain is the fifth largest economy in the European Union.  As with the global economy, Spain is experiencing slow growth and dealing with the impacts of a recession. In the 1970’s Spain was a very poor country. In the 1980’s, government and private investment in the real estate development and construction sectors created jobs and increased the standard of living. By the 1990’s Spain’s economy was skyrocketing. As part of the European Union, many of the traditional economic practices are unavailable to the government of Spain. For example, fiscal policy of the Euro is controlled by the E.U. and Spain cannot issue currency or adjust interest rates.  So, they resort to infrastructure projects to help infuse currency into the market and help create jobs.  Spain’s current unemployment rate is around 20%; however, if you include the problematic immigration population, from Northern Africa and Eastern Europe, this number is estimated to be 40%. The per capita income in Spain is $22,338.  The government has instituted salary reductions of 5%, decreased benefits, enacted labor and pension reform.

Spain is a leader in high speed rail and green technology including solar and wind power.  The government is focusing on the country’s high technology sector to jump start the economy.

Robert Hanson,  U.S.D.A, Foreign Agricultural Services (FSA) spoke next regarding agriculture in Spain.  The FSA is responsible for promoting United States Agricultural exports and related products to Spain.  The FSA has 102 offices in 82 countries.  Mr. Hanson relayed to us that it is difficult for Spain to compete in the world market due to high labor costs and energy rates.  Spain is utilizing 54% of their arable land for production with 13% of this land irrigated.  Olives, cereal crops, almonds, citrus and grapes are the top agricultural products. Livestock is a large part of Spain’s agriculture, with Spain’s pork production number two in the E.U.   United States exports to Spain in 2008 were 1.5 billion, with 46 ports receiving the commodities.  Food security and international trade agreements are some of the critical issues that are monitored by the FSA office in Madrid.  The average age of a farmer in Spain is 40.

Angela Turrin of the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Commercial Service spoke to us next about connecting U.S. companies with those in Spain. The International Partner Search (IPS) is the name of the program the Department of Commerce offers to companies in the U.S and Spain. If interested, please go to www.export.gov/cs for more information. 

Irene Sobreroca Doblas with AFRE, the Spanish Water and Irrigation Manufactures Association was the final speaker and gave a brief overview of their role in water policy and irrigation. AFRE is a non-profit organization. The association is the only nation-wide association of businesses whose goal is to represent, defend, promote and develop Spanish water and irrigation technology.  With close to 100 members, AFRE is made up of manufacturer’s, engineers and installers- and other organizations in the water technology.

At the end of our trip, the 6 of us would like to reiterate Class 40’s final sentiment: We are all thankful for the opportunity and will forever be appreciative to the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation and Alumni for this seminar. The cultural, political and historical leadership experiences will impact us in our personal and professional life.

  - Karm Bains, Melissa Duflock, Matt Jones, Jim Peterson, Sarah Reynolds, Jim Shattuck

March 3 - Travel Day Alacanti to Madrid

Today was a travel day and we did a little sightseeing around Alacanti before we headed to Madrid.  During our travel we saw a large high-speed rail project being built from Alicanti to Madrid.  We also saw some solar and wind farms that were incredibly large.  Along our route we were afforded the time to stop and visit a relative of our class mate Mathew Jones.   This adventurous couple has lived in several different countries and in the last 5 years has settled in a small remote village in rural Spain.  The population of the village is 5 full time residences with weekend or holiday homes in the area.  The village is surrounded by vineyards and olive trees.

 - Karm Bains, Melissa Duflock, Matt Jones, Jim Peterson, Sarah Reynolds, Jim Shattuck

March 2 - Alicante, Spain

Today we visited Desalicizodora Del Canal De Alicante, the largest desalinization plant in Spain. We met with Juan Carlos Gonzalez, the Director of Maintenance.  We watched a video about the plant and the process of removing the salt out of seawater.   This was followed by a tour of their facility. 

 Alicante lies next to the Mediterranean Sea. The scarcity of water became more apparent in this region of Spain in the 1990’s with the increase of population, tourism and modernization.  

The desalinization plant cost $49 million and was built in 2003.  This plant uses a reverse osmosis membrane process, which produces 50,000 cubic meters of usable water on a daily basis. Eighteen sea wells pump seawater to the plant for processing.  The water is forced with an external pressure through a semi permeable membrane to extract the salt. In this process 45% of the sea water that is processed is usable drinking water. The remainder is reject water, which is of much greater salinity than the source water.  Because of environmental regulations, the reject water is analyzed and mixed with seawater before returning to the sea. 

The Desalinization Plant of Alicante is the beginning of a network of canals and water filtration systems that spans across the region of Alicante.  Treated usable water from this plant is pumped 22 kilometers to Elche and into the Infraestructura Basica de los Canales del Tabilla. This network of canals spreads across the Province of Alicante.

Our next journey took us to Xixona also pronounced Jijona depending upon which dialect of Spanish you are using.  Xixona is about an hour North of Alicante.  Xixona was a significant almond-producing region prior to 1986.  In 1986 a change in Spanish law made both ground water and surface water public domain and under the jurisdiction of the municipalities.  When other sources of water became unavailable, the local municipalities drilled deep wells into the aquifers and diverted the water to the urban areas.  This left the almond farmers with a very limited quantity of water. Now most of the almond orchards in this region are not producing and have been abandoned.  These abandoned farms are now suffering from erosion and the region resembles a desert. 

We completed the day with a tour of Antiu Xixona, a food-processing factory.  Its specialty is Turron, a traditional Spanish Christmas candy that is made with almond, honey, and oranges.

 - Karm Bains, Melissa Duflock, Matt Jones, Jim Peterson, Sarah Reynolds, Jim Shattuck

February 28 - Zaragoza Spain

On Monday morning Dr. Jose Albiac led us to our first meeting with Regelio Galvan Plaza from the Confederation of Ebro Hydrographic Basin in Zaragoza.  Mr. Plaza gave us an overview of the functions of the Ebro Basin Confederation, and his purpose is primarily water planning for the entire Basin.  A hydrographic basin is the area of land on which all the water converges by means of a network of tributaries on a single main river then flows to the sea.  The Ebro Basin is supplied water by the Pyrenees Mountains in Northern Spain. It is a natural territorial unit which does not coincide with political or administrative boundaries, meaning it spans across multiple states and provinces.  The Confederation is an organization responsible for the coordination of different uses of water through the issuance of water licenses.  A portion of the water distribution system dates back to the Roman occupation of Spain. The Ebro Basin Hydrographic Water Management Control Room is where water management technicians control and monitor water flow and quality.  Strategic water quality monitoring stations are located down stream from possible violators throughout the water shed. The monitoring room was impressive because they are capable of monitoring the agricultural and urban water use for an area spanning over 21 million acres. Spain is one of the leading producers of meat (hogs, lambs, and cattle). Runoff from these animal farms carry nitrates to the water ways, and the efforts of preventing this pollution has proven to be a difficult task. Water quality standards and accepted levels are dictated by the European Union, and in Spain surface water and aquifers are public domain. The Zaragoza region is arid like the San Joaquin Valley, so the water management is crucial to the sustainability of the area.

 

Our next stop was CITA (Centro de Investigacion y Tecnologia agroalimentaria de Aragon), where Dr. Jose Albiac, our guide, spends his time focusing on water policy & economics.  CITA is a public institution devoted to research, development and technology for the agricultural and food sectors. CITA’s purpose is to increase the competiveness and environmental sustainability of the two sectors. There are several Units of CITA including Animal and Plant Technology, Food Quality and Safety, Soils, Irrigation, Agro-food Economics, and Natural Resources.  Dr. Albiac mentioned that water policy in Spain focuses primarily on surface water. In the 1960’s, rivers and water ways in Spain were healthy, yet due to industrialization and urban sprawl, pollution increased rapidly by the 1980’s. The pollution forced water policy to develop within the country addressing the issues. By the 1990’s Spain enacted the National Irrigation Plan, which is still in place today.

A representative from the CITA Seed Bank reviewed their functions with us.  They collect, reproduce and store a library of vegetable plant seeds native to Spain, other than tree crops.  An inventory is maintained at the location we visited. There is a larger seed bank located in Norway (Svalbard) Spitsberce Islands Nortic Gene Bank which stores seeds for all countries in a controlled environment in an underground bunker.

Sergoi Lecina Brau of CITA, presented to us scientific and technological information about the crop-soil-water-atmosphere interface leading to more competitive, efficient and sustainable agricultural systems with emphasis on irrigation, agronomy and the environment with an applied-research focus.  They have developed software that helps manage all aspects of water distribution and usage.

During our lunch, Dr. Albiac told us that the average farm in Spain is about 40 to 100 acres, and that most farm owners are not interested in selling their land. Also, we learned that there are 60,000 acres of greenhouses in Spain which are very profitable supplying agricultural products to much of Europe and domestically. Dr. Albiac has been to Turkey to study the GAP Water Project and is familiar with the issues surrounding the project.  Other than getting internet access intermittently, our trip is shaping up to be very well organized and is an experience we are happy to share with our classmates and followers.

 - Karm Bains, Melissa Duflock, Matt Jones, Jim Peterson, Sarah Reynolds, Jim Shattuck

February 27 - Heading Home

Class 40 was up early and on the bus heading to the Istanbul airport on our final day of the leadership journey.  The majority were destined for home, one was off to Amsterdam, another to Morocco and six to Spain.  In Spain the Delegation will have several meetings following the theme of our International Seminar.  Posts to this blog will occur as appropriate between now and March 5.

As we said our goodbyes, there was a bitter sweet feeling among us.  We were excited to return to California to our loved ones and share our experiences; however we wished the seminar would not end as there is more to learn from this part of the world.

We are all thankful for the opportunity and will forever be appreciative to the California Agricultural Leadership Foundation and Alumni for this seminar. The cultural, political and historical leadership experiences will impact us in our personal and professional life.

 - Karm Bains, Dan Sutton, David Warter