Strawberry fields forever

Strawberries all year round, but at a price.

Modern strawberry fields

Spain provides strawberries in winter. They are grown in polytunnels, picked by large immigrant work forces, rely heavily on the use of chemicals - and now strawberry growers are under fire for damaging the environment.

Boycott winter strawberries
A WWF campaign group is urging consumers to stop buying strawberries from Spain during winter. Ninety-five percent of the Spanish strawberries are grown around the Coto Donana National Park; so strawberry farms are surrounding this 5,000-hectare UN World Heritage site. According to WWF the water irrigation required by the farms is reducing water to the Donana marshes by up to 50%. The group therefore recommends a strawberry boycott.

Strawberries used to be a luscious dessert available for six weeks a year. Strawberry fields were a common sight in many parts of Europe, and many a youth has had a sore back - and stomach - from strawberry picking. Times have changed. Strawberry fields are rare and youngsters can't be bothered to be strawberry pickers.

Polytunnels brimming with strawberries
The hidden cost of strawberries around the year is manifold. Anyone who has travelled in southern Spain cannot have avoided seeing row after row of massive polytunnels billowing in the wind that rape these otherwise beautiful landscapes. It's a well-known fact that working inside these tunnels is dangerous due to the many chemicals. Spaniards won't do it; so many Africans desperate for a job do the strawberry picking under the plastic in a humid environment. The suicide and drug addiction rates are high amongst these workers. Strawberry farmers maintain that this is a modern way of farming strawberries. The Spaniards are producing some 330,000 metric tons of strawberries annually at an affordable price.

Strawberry fields forever....
Yet, perhaps we do need to take a deep breath. Do we really want strawberries all year round? Don't they loose some of their warm associations with summer picnics? Should we eat seasonal fruits and vegetables like our ancestors did? And should we go back to the era of strawberry fields, rather than polytunnels? Naïve perhaps, but I want strawberry fields forever, just like the Beatles did back in '67.