Southeastern Spain, one of the driest areas in Europe, has established itself as one of the continent's main agricultural hubs. Despite having a climate marked by minimal rainfall and long periods of drought, this region has become the heart of the so-called “european vegetable garden.” Thanks to state policies, desalination plants, artificial reservoirs, and complex water transfer systems between river basins have been built, allowing vast previously unproductive areas to be irrigated.

It is a dry, arid land, dotted with scrubland, cacti, and white rockrose. And suddenly, from the barren landscape emerges an immense white expanse almost 30 kilometers long, guarded by the Gádor mountain range and the Mediterranean Sea. This is Almería's sea of ​​plastic, the great vegetable garden of Europe, where nearly 100,000 workers labor, most of them immigrants, and about 30% of them undocumented. In total, there are some 35,000 hectares of greenhouses—the equivalent of 50,000 football fields combined—that can produce up to 3.5 million tons of vegetables and fruits: peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini... Tens of thousands of greenhouses engulf everything, penetrating the towns and cities of the region, white plastic sheets visible from space, blending in with houses and industrial buildings. It is the economic engine of the region: on one side the western area, surrounding El Ejido; on the other valley, the vast esplanade at the foot of the municipality of Níjar.