Santi Navarro: "We made the transition to organic farming more for environmental and health reasons than for economic reasons"

In 2023, Explotaciones Agrícolas Mas de Baix, from Tivissa, in the Ribera d'Ebre, received one of the awards for Best Sustainable Producers given by BBVA. Their commitment to organic farming on their farm, where they grow peaches, nectarines, apricots and flat peaches, earned them this distinction, which took into account their firm commitment to biodiversity and health.

Why did you decide to make the transition to organic farming?

— We decided to make this change at a time when we saw that we were using a lot of chemicals to get a good harvest. When we started, we saw that it worked. So we made the transition to organic farming more for environmental and health reasons than for economic reasons.

What changes did this bring to your way of working?

— We maintain our way of doing things, but instead of using synthetic chemicals, we now use natural chemicals to treat our products.

Your commitment to biodiversity is one of the key elements of this conversion. What has it brought you?

— Well, we have found that some diseases that our crops used to get have now disappeared. Perhaps there are some that are more difficult to combat with organic farming, but others, such as powdery mildew or fruit flies, we have solved. Today, they can be solved well with organic products, even conventional agriculture has many products that are not as aggressive as they were years ago. Now, the biggest problem that conventional agriculture has is herbicides and chemical fertilizers, which do not allow certain bacteria to grow in the soil and which are necessary.

How much organic fruit do you produce annually?

— In total, and adding up all the varieties we produce, we produce around 450,000 kilos per year.

Do you think that consumers value the organic farm products they find on the market or is there still work to be done in this regard?

— No, it doesn't yet. In our opinion, it has never been valued enough in Spain, but right now, we have been experiencing a significant decline for the last two years. Even at a European level. People don't buy organic fruit. The market has stagnated and organic fruit is suffering from higher prices than the rest and a drop in production. In addition, people are content with products that come from integrated productions and a lot of products are imported from abroad, which people prefer to buy because they are much cheaper. This contradicts doing things right.

BBVA has awarded you as one of the best sustainable producers in Spain. What has this meant for you?

— The award has made us a little better known here, although we export our products outside the country and our main consumer, consequently, is located abroad.

Which countries do you export to?

— We do not export directly, but rather through a company based in Lleida. We mainly export to Switzerland and Germany, although we also occasionally send our fruit to the Netherlands and France.

What challenges do you face for the future of the company?

— The future of agriculture is very complicated at the moment. In any case, we have now obtained the Demeter certificate for biodynamic agriculture to see if we can expand our market. This will be seen in the next two or three years, but the agricultural sector is currently in a pessimistic moment: cultivation and production costs are rising, but consumers increasingly want to pay for the cheapest product and unfair competition is becoming stronger. That is why there are also fewer and fewer people working in the fields.