The heroes of the artichoke

If we take a historical look at the cartography of the Llobregat Delta, we can see how the agricultural space has been shrinking. Cultivable land has been disappearing, devoured by asphalt. Today, the farmers who resist in the space delimited by the Llobregat Agricultural Park and the banks of the same river are the last Mohicans of what was once the garden that fed half of Catalonia. Aborigines who are systematically harassed by urban pressure, which fortunately in recent years, due to the crisis, has eased a bit, by the growth of infrastructures that connect Barcelona to the south and west, and by the floods that this excessive urbanization of the environment causes. The water does not filter, it literally slides and gains momentum towards the sea, flooding the fields in the area known as the marina.

Even so, near a hundred farmers continue to produce some of the best vegetables, greens, and fruits in Catalonia. In recent years, agriculture has seen how improvements in logistical transport capacity have led to fierce competition from third countries that, with very low prices, have made the old agricultural exploitation models unviable. Fortunately, more and more farmers are understanding that traditional agriculture needs to be complemented with direct marketing, and that often implies also taking care of distribution and its logistics, which adds value to the product.The farmers who do not assume these changes will die at the hands of ridiculous prices set by intermediary agents emboldened by products coming from third countries, especially from impoverished countries

More and more farmers are understanding that traditional agriculture needs to be complemented with direct marketing.

To all these problems, which are not few, because perhaps the easiest thing a priori would be to sell off the plots and barely live off the income, is added the lack of understanding on the part of some public institutions and the published opinion of what the Llobregat Delta represents. The traditional stance has been to consider that everything is an anachronism that needs to be paved and built up from top to bottom. "The tractors are coming!", roared a high-ranking political official from the Barcelona City Council as a synonym for barbarism. At the other extreme are those who consider the Llobregat Delta to be a natural space in which the homo sapiensshould disappear without a trace. But rationality should lead to thinking and acting in and for an intermediate space in which the farmer could develop normally.Institutions must understand and support that farmers must be able to create their own means and equipment for food processing, logistics, and, if necessary, direct marketing next to their plot.An excess of protectionism inexorably leads to preventing the improvement of the competitiveness of agricultural holdings and their survival.

An excess of protectionism inexorably leads to preventing the improvement of the competitiveness of agricultural holdings and their survival

The paradox of all this is that there is an increasing public demand for quality food products, and many of them require zero-kilometer productsand, at the same time, we are suffocating the most important agricultural space that Barcelona and its metropolitan region have. The new generation of farmers in the Llobregat Delta, those who strive to make a place for themselves among the savage broadsides to which foreign competition subjects them, are clear that the present and future lies in quality products and the recovery of traditional varieties. This has been understood by prestigious chefs who have made the quality product of the Llobregat Delta their culinary emblem, such as Xavier Pellicer, from the restaurant that bears his name;Jordi Vilà, from Alkimia;Albert Ventura, del Coure;Fabio Gambirasi, of the Agreste;David Andrés, of the Vía Veneto; orJaime Pérez, from Les 7 Portes, to name just a few.

Perhaps it is time for us to focus on these treasures in the form of artichokes, asparagus, endive or cherries that are grown very close to our city and that appear on the plates of the best restaurants. We have it right here and believe me, it is a privilege that too often we do not live up to. In our country and, especially in Barcelona, in culinary excellence, alongside the so-called techno-emotional cuisine that Ferran Adrià invented and promoted, product cuisine, local product cuisine, coexists. But this product is only possible if there are farmers left. And today in the Llobregat Delta, as in many other places, living off the land is an epic, a race for survival against many obstacles. So when you bite into and taste an artichoke from the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park with all its flavor, think that behind it there is a man or a woman who, against all odds, has chosen to perform a miracle that delights our palate, and whoever says palate says life. And all this happens just a few minutes from the Eixample, Gracia or El Born.

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