By RACHAEL ADAMS
This afternoon I’m riding down into the Barranc d’ Algendar to visit an organic orchard that produces avocados. While I sit at Vimpy cooling myself in the shade with a beer, the farmer calls to say she’s stranded and can’t get the car out because of the ice. Yes, the ice. It’s early May.
There used to be close to 50 orchards in Menorca – today there are but a handful left. I’m curious about the challenges these remaining farmers face, and how they manage their water. Especially when climate change means we now get hail in May and flash floods that drown horses. On my visits, I discover a wonderful array of oranges, nectarines, lemons, limes and grapefruits, apples and pears, sweetsops, persimmons, figs, apricots and avocados. Oh and nectarines and ginjols.
The south of Menorca is riddled with long and winding ravines (barrancs) that were carved out by rivers thousands of years ago. Torrents run along the bottom and natural springs flourish at the edges. These cool moist channels are perfect wind-sheltered havens for growing fruit. Pottery fragments reveal that Al- Andalus settlers first farmed the ravines from the 10th to the 13th centuries, before they were thrown out by the Catalans in 1238. They brought new crops that needed watering, and developed an irrigation infrastructure that also extended the growing season. From a spring near the top of the ravine, water was diverted down either side of the torrent through channels cut from sandstone blocks (‘mares’) to the crops. Sometimes these channels were cut directly into the rock. As one spring dried up another one was tapped into lower down the ravine.
Later, around the mid-1800s, waterwheels or ‘sínies’ powered by mules were used to lift water into ‘safareigs’ where it was stored before being diverted along channels to higher terraces. Remains of ‘Sinies’ can still be seen today, usually whitewashed and draped in Bougainvillea. Mules were eventually replaced by engines to turn the cogs. Today we use solar-powered water pumps instead. Another way to raise the water to higher terraces was by making dams. Over the years cereals, vines, vegetables and even rice have been grown here.
Most Menorcan farms still have Arab names. All the ‘Bini’ or ‘al’ somethings, and ‘rafals’.
My first stop is the Barranc d’ Algendar in Ferreries. I zoom down through the shady wonderland on my road bike, derailleur and chain rattling for dear life. I can’t believe how cool, green and lush it is. How sheer the sandstone rock faces are and how immense yet crumbly they seem at the same time. This place is a magical sanctuary home to rare birds, bats, insects and flowers. Oh, and caves where people took happy drugs.
Soon, bizarrely, just through the gates to Es Molí de Baix, I find the ice: piles of hailstones the size of marbles. And a car stuck in the middle of it. I wade through it to meet Flora Ritman – who tells me the hailstones have just destroyed her avocados, their delicate flowers are in tatters. This ravine receives water that runs all the way down from es Pla Verd — originally a marsh but later drained for agriculture. Now that spongy filter is gone, and with climate change altering rain intensity, flash floods downstream are increasingly violent.
Thick old walls called ‘fortins’ run perpendicular to the torrent to protect crops from flooding. Though they weren’t enough in 2021 when many of the trees were flattened in the infamous September floods, losing their fruit at a cost of thousands of euros. They’re now all curiously propped up with notched branches. Ducks amble placidly under their shade.
Conversely, dozens of illegal bore-holes and the rampant waste of water across Menorca mean our water table has dropped dramatically. Thus, most of the springs here are dry, and the torrent carries but a quarter of the water it once did. Flora manages with a small spring and a cistern delivering water to a drip irrigation hose around the trees. She advocates repairing the rest of the cisterns we have lying around unable to gather rainwater.
Though the barranc is designated an SSSI, ANEI, SEPA, BIC, LIC you name it, the Govern Balear who are responsible for maintaining the torrents don’t do enough. The retaining walls are tumbling down. Grants for farmers to carry out the work themselves are small and often inaccessible due to political constraints. Despite donkeys Paco, Piet and Clotilde’s best efforts, the torrent is overgrown with canes.
Flora’s secrets to conserving water are to mulch around the trees and keep the ground covered to reduce evaporation, hence she strims as little as possible. She sees herself as a temporary caretaker, and calls her home the “forgotten paradise”. After the floods, the mulch needs to be replaced again. Done by hand. Life here is a struggle, – but it’s still paradise.
Over to the east of the island is the second main fruit-producing ravine; the Barranc de Cala’n Porter. This one has a more open, shallow profile and apples and pears seem to do better here.
Joan Fortuny and his family have been growing fruit here for five generations. At least they think it’s five. They can’t even remember. Today I’ve caught them in the middle of their ‘nispero campaign’. They grow three varieties of what we call a Japanese loquat and father and son are dashing about on quads with buckets. Their water comes from five wells and is extracted with solar-powered pumps.
Unlike mainland Spain, we don’t see cheap labour here and this is reflected in the price of our fruit. Fruit farmers generally earn a good living, but the consensus is that it’s dying out because it’s too much like hard work; having started at 5.30 this morning, work continues late into the evening picking fruit and preparing what they need to sell locally the next day. Luckily, winter is pruning time and they get plenty of days off for hunting and fishing.
They are concerned their pears and apricots aren’t doing well since we’ve had such mild winters. What with peaches, apricots, and plums to sort out, I am lucky to get ten minutes out of them, “You have to love it!” Joan calls over his shoulder from his fast-departing quad. On my way home, I notice tree guards around somebody’s pear orchard. These are to prevent trees being damaged when they’re sprayed with glyphosate weedkiller.
My last stop is at Biniarbolla, towards the top of the barranc. Jordi shows me peaches, plums, pavios and persimmons. He’s also experimenting with tropical fruits like papayas and mangoes. Menorcan fruit tastes so sweet because it’s picked when it’s ripe, unlike a lot of fruit that is picked prematurely and then shipped across the world. Ripe fruit lasts but a week on the tree hence the mad working hours.
I’m most intrigued by why his fig trees are trained horizontally on a single plane, like vines. It’s to protect hands from the highly irritant leaf sap. These trees were also beset by hailstones, the size of golf balls this time. While they survived, they were severely damaged, and two-inch scars remain where the wood was cut open.
Fruit flies and moths are monitored here, as elsewhere, with ‘deltas’ or small card traps. These are laced with glue containing attractive pheromones that insects stick to and die. By counting the casualties, the farmer knows when and if he needs to treat his trees with insecticides. And with 10km of trees, it’s a way to save both money and the environment.
This orchard also uses water pumped from wells now because what’s left of the torrent is a polluted smelly green trickle. Gone are the days of channelling its water directly to the trees.
Today, orchards are larger and farmers have fewer workers but more machinery to house. Yet the ravines are so heavily protected (this one is at least an ANEI) that it’s near impossible to repair infrastructure. And they daren’t touch the watercourses that run through their land! Once so important, these are now overgrown, polluted, and running dry.
Year after year, investment in agriculture has been cut, with nearly all of the budget going to tourism. To the point that the Consell Insular’s agriculture department calls itself an “endangered species”, and one farmer says “we’ll end up eating computers and microchips”.
As I walk home at dusk all I can hear is a donkey braying. The Scops owls begin to hoot as the stars come out. A pine marten rustles in the elms above my head. I’m miles away from the tourist masses. In a haven of peace.
I’ve discovered that our barrancs are staggeringly beautiful but threatened systems. The families working there today are still very much a part of our cultural heritage. Beyond sometimes crippling environmental designations, the waterways need regular maintenance. And the farmers need support from our government.
Rachael Adams is a freelance environmental journalist https://rachaeladamsblog.live/
https://agroxerxa.menorca.es is a website that lists the local produce of Menorca. The farms mentioned can all be found on the site along with shops selling the products.
Es Moli de Baix – Flora Ritman is Dutch and came to Menorca in her late teens. She studied biodynamic agriculture in Holland and is now a registered custodian of around 400 fruit trees in the Barranc d’Algendar.
Hort d’en Rosello – known as Hort Fortuny since the 1800’s and now run by Joan Fortuny Melià in the Barranc de Cala’n Porter
Hort de Biniarbolla & Binimatzoc – run by Jordi Quintana Pons, a family business for 30 years, he bought Binimatzoc more recently and began a plantation from scratch.
