The fact that Portugal attracts so many migrant
workers is also due to it having one of the most liberal immigration systems in
Europe. Anyone possessing a work contract longer that six months receives a
residency permit and those who retain work for seven straight years are
eligible for citizenship. This puts a life in Western Europe within reach for
many people, a promise that is euphemistically referred to as a "raspberry
visa.”
Blueberries for Europe
Portugal Mortgages Its Future for Present-Day
Agricultural Profits
The berry market has transformed Portugal as
plantations have sprung up in recent years. Conditions for workers are
problematic and an already dry region is quickly using up its water supplies.
By Jan
Petter and Gonçalo Fonseca (Photos) in São Teotónio, Portugal
20.09.2021,
16.00 Uhr
In the past
four years, says João Rosado, he has tried everything. Harvesters of different
sizes, different nationalities, men, women, mixed teams.
Efficiency,
after all, is vital during the late June harvest season at Portugal’s largest
blueberry farm. The bushes stretch to the horizon, with hundreds of workers
kneeling among them, picking the plump, ripe berries. Foremen on quads urge
them on in different languages.
Rosado, the
head of the plantation, is sitting in a container on a sandy hill and looking
out over his realm, a 92-hectare (230-acre) facility in the southern part of
the country. When he heads down to the fields, he takes the car; it’s about a
six-minute drive to the center of the plantation. His Dacia compact used to be
white, but now looks as though it hasn’t seen a paved road in quite some time.
On the way, Rosado explains that there is a "window of opportunity” for
each berry which needs to be recognized and taken advantage of. The same holds
true of the workforce, he says.
Most of the
approximately 300 workers on his farm are shorter than 1.70 meters (5 foot 6)
and work in separate teams. For taller people, he says, the work is simply too
strenuous, and they develop back pain more quickly than shorter workers.
The
appetite for fresh berries has skyrocketed in northern Europe in recent years,
and that has produced significant changes in the Alentejo region of Portugal.
The country’s berry exports are now three times greater than they were in 2015
and the sector is expecting consumption to quadruple in the coming years. In
2020, Portugal generated 247 million euros ($290 million) in revenues, with the
Netherlands and Germany the largest recipients.
Vaccinium
corymbosum, the cultivated form of the blueberry that comes from North America,
is the secret star, though challenging to grow. The bushes need to be watered
correctly and are sensitive to cold and pressure. Furthermore, each berry must
be individually twisted from the bush. In exchange, they allow growers to
demand the best prices. No other fruit is growing in importance as quickly. In
2019, annual per capita consumption averaged out to 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds).
In Europe, it was merely 190 grams.
Farm
manager João Rosado. "We're fighting for survival."
Southern
Alentejo seemed like the perfect setting to expand production. The climate is temperate
for most of the year and allows for longer growing seasons than in Spain. There
is lots of space and plenty of EU agricultural subsidies.
But the
booming berry business only works thanks to an army of migrant workers who are
generally as unfamiliar with their rights as they are with the Portuguese
language. Initially, the workforce largely consisted of Romanians and
Bulgarians. Now, it is primarily made up of South Asians from Nepal, India,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Their number has grown rapidly, with the total
estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000. And more than 90 percent of the
berries they pick are slated for export.
As a
result, an armada of refrigerated trucks leave the region every evening at
twilight, winding their way north on the region’s curvy country roads. And just
a few hours after they leave, dozens of vans and buses fan out to the villages
in the area before sunrise, going door to door to collect the harvest workers.
Many gaze tiredly out of fogged-up windows during the drive, which can take
more than an hour.
Suraj is
one of them. The 23-year-old from Kathmandu is his parents’ only son. After
finishing school, he assembled USB sticks for a while, but then lost his job.
In 2019, a friend told him of a new job opportunity – and so he uprooted and
flew from Nepal to Portugal. Suraj’s story is similar to the one told by many
of the berry harvesters the region. The tend to be young, male, the oldest son
in the family and on the search for a better future in Europe.
Suraj
cooking dinner with his housemate Akash. A total of 18 people live in the
run-down house.
On a Monday
evening in June, a man knocks on Suraj’s door and wants money. He grumpily
moves through the room from resident to resident, the pile of money in his
hands growing bigger and bigger. The money collector, who isn’t particularly
pleased to have been observed as he goes about his business, calls himself
Suraj’s "agent.” Eighteen people live here, in his small, five-room house
on the outskirts of Sao Teotónio. They are all from Nepal and each of them has
to pay 165 euros ($195) per month for a squeaky metal bed. The total rent is
just short of 3,000 euros per month. An exorbitant price.
The small
village of São Teotónio is symbolic of the changes that have occurred in recent
years. Two thirds of its official 6,500 inhabitants are thought to be migrant
workers and the place is home to Indian supermarkets and a Nepalese snack bar.
There is,
though, a shortage of decent living conditions. The house shared by Suraj and
his 17 roommates has but two toilets and mold in some of the corners. And
social distancing has been impossible throughout the pandemic. In order to
maintain some semblance of order, the men eat in shifts and alternate kitchen
duties. They have planted spinach in the garden out back. Suraj says he spends
50 euros a month on food and tries to send 100 to 200 euros to his parents, or
he sets it aside to send later.
Suraj and
his coworkers earn 3.50 euros per hour, with much of it being paid to the
agencies. Of the workers’ 600 to 1,200 euros in monthly earnings, they tend to
end up with just 300 to 400 euros after paying for their sleeping space in the
shared room, cheap food and several suspicious service fees. DER SPIEGEL has
seen relevant documents and statements from multiple harvest workers.
For many of
the workers, Sundays are the only free day in the week. They use it for doing
laundry, shopping and playing football.
The fact that Portugal attracts so many migrant
workers is also due to it having one of the most liberal immigration systems in
Europe. Anyone possessing a work contract longer that six months receives a
residency permit and those who retain work for seven straight years are
eligible for citizenship. This puts a life in Western Europe within reach for
many people, a promise that is euphemistically referred to as a "raspberry
visa.”
The harvest
workers include Indian IT experts and business administration students from
Bangladesh who had previously lived in Denmark or Germany and lost their
incomes during the pandemic and must now face the prospect of losing their
visas to stay in Europe.
The farm
where João Rosado grows blueberries for half of Europe belongs to a young man
who is himself only 30. Lourenço Barral de Botton is the scion of a family that
grew rich from plastic packaging and a questionable trick. His grandfather
earned millions in the 1970s by using many small companies to circumvent the
co-determination rights that were then mandatory for all large companies.
For his
grandchild, the process of earning money began in a relatively simple fashion.
In a video interview, he explains that his father gave him an empty field for a
summer and told him: "Do something with it if you want to be successful.”
The son learned about the blueberry business at a trade fair and invested.
Logofruits
got started in 2016, but now grows berries for export on 370 acres of land.
Five years
later, the company Logofruits has two large plantations covering 1.5 million
square meters (370 acres). The know-how and the plants came from the Chilean
agricultural concern Carsol and two other partners. The fields in Portugal are
meant to expand the offerings when it’s winter on the other side of the
Atlantic. The company says it supplies the German supermarkets Edeka, Lidl,
Aldi, Rewe and Kaufland.
Such
collaborations exist throughout the region. An opaque network of multinational
agricultural companies, local large-scale landowners and European trading
companies has emerged. The world’s largest strawberry producer, Driscoll’s,
also grows here.
Lourenço
Barral de Botton admits that his company has a lot of freedom. "In the
past year, our plantations were inspected more often by Tesco than by the
Portuguese authorities,” he says with a shrug. The quality standards of British
supermarkets seem to pose a greater danger for him than the law.
The municipality
of Odemira is vast, but it only has about 15 residents per square kilometer.
On only one
occasion did the region experience difficulties with the authorities, when the
entire region was sealed off for several days in May 2021 due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Suddenly, a spotlight was shone on the conditions in which the
laborers were forced to live and work. In 108 inspections, fully 123 violations
of labor law were found. There are still six ongoing investigations into human
trafficking. But almost nobody is interested in the details, and since then,
there has been no more talk of inspections.
A half hour
from the Logofruits plantation, José Alberto Guerreiro is sitting in the city
hall of Odemira. Rivers, sea, fields and mountains – his municipality is a
cross-section of Alentejo, the mayor says. Odemira is the largest community in
Portugal by area. But there are only 26,000 inhabitants – fewer than 15 per
square kilometer.
For a long
time, it seemed like a minor miracle was taking place here: Dozens of new
companies showed up, jobs were created, and plantations sprung up everywhere.
The region was suddenly connected to the world at large.
The Santa
Clara reservoir is drying up. Some 90 percent of the water is used for
agriculture, but it is rapidly emptying out.
But the
57-year-old says that locals are increasingly wondering what they are getting
out of all of this. He remains silent for a moment, then says that the
migration problem needs to be solved – quickly adding that he is, of course,
referring to the living conditions. It sounds a bit like he no longer really
knows what is right anymore and what is wrong.
Indeed, the
exploitation of people is no longer the only problem. The Santa Clara reservoir
in the mountains behind Odemira has been supplying the region with the dammed
water of the small Mira River for 53 years. From here, it flows toward the sea
and branches out into smaller open channels. But it no longer reaches everyone.
Because
while the agricultural companies keep irrigating their fields as they always
have, the first inhabitants have seen their taps run dry. "We only have
enough water for two years,” warns Guerreiro. The reservoir is already half
empty, and the depth gauge is high and dry. Alentejo is drying up.
Francisco
Pacheco and his neighbors lost their water rights over night and can no longer
water their gardens.
Francisco
Pacheco, 75, has been living here his whole life. The residents of São Miguel,
a suburb of Sao Teotónio, tend to be elderly. Most of them were simple farmers
or workers and now survive on pensions of 200 to 400 euros per month. Children
and grandchildren have largely moved to the city. To make ends meet, they often
grow potatoes or beans, as well as strawberries and spinach. "We never had
much, but before now, it was always enough,” says Pacheco.
Before, the
use of the irrigation channels cost him less than 20 euros per year. But since
March, the water has stopped coming. The valves on the pipes leading from the
canal were removed overnight. Pacheco points to his dried-out plants. It will
seemingly be his last harvest.
The
elimination of irrigation rights for people like Pacheco is hardly surprising.
The special-purpose association that controls the water from the reservoir is,
after all, controlled by its largest users. The big farms are responsible for
90 percent of consumption, and they are able to divert the water to themselves
and shut the others out. When Pacheco and 32 other residents complained about
the situation in a letter, the head of the agricultural lobby recommended they
water their potatoes with tap water.
So far,
only residents and small gardeners have seen their water cut off.
Meanwhile,
the drought is getting worse. Further west, toward the sea, residents,
politicians and environmentalists are complaining about water shortages and the
environmental damage caused by the intensive farming. The say the lower reaches
of the Mira are drying out, the aquatic plants are dying, biotopes are
disappearing.
Sara Serrao
is one of those fighting back. If something doesn’t happen soon, she and her
fellow campaigners from the residents’ initiative Juntos pelo Sudoeste worry
that the nature preserve could soon be lost. She says the problem is getting
worse. "The large-scale farmers are now building new plantations directly
on the cliffs without approval,” the 46-year-old warns.
Environmental
organizations from outside the region are now also issuing warnings about the
destruction of the nature preserve and have submitted a complaint to the
European Commission. Left-wing parties have also started an initiative in
Portuguese parliament to take away the control over the Santa Clara dam from
the special-purpose organization.
Such
initiatives are not, for the moment, foremost on João Rosado’s mind. He has
other problems. The current season, he says, has been the worst thus far
because of the pandemic. During the lockdown, he says, many migrants left,
leaving him with a shortage of workers and a surplus of uncertainty. Instead of
900 workers in the fields, he says, he currently has 300 at the most.
João Rosado
is planning on building a third plantation once the pandemic has come to an end.
For the
berries to still be processed in time during peak season, they now need to be
driven overnight to the Netherlands, where there is a sorting machine that can
process 2.4 tons per hour. Rosado hopes that the harvest workers can thus
concentrate on the picking.
"We’re
fighting for survival,” he says, briefly wiping his face.
It is
hardly surprising that many harvest workers have left. Of the hundreds of
people on Rosado’s farm, only 25 are on staff. The others officially work for
temp firms and agencies like Suraj’s – under dangerous conditions. A few weeks
after our last encounter, the Nepalese share a photo of a COVID test in their
house. It was positive: 12 of 18 inhabitants were infected, even though some of
them were already vaccinated.
João
Rosado, on the other hand, is already thinking about the future. Once things
improve, after the pandemic, he says, a third farm will be needed. After all,
he says, the blueberry business is just getting started.
With reporting by Enrique Oltra Pinto-Coelho
OPINIÃO
Um apelo à revisão da Nova Lei da Imigração e à reposição
do SEF
Chegou o momento de voltar a rever a Nova Lei da
Imigração e de garantir a continuidade do SEF. Um SEF reformado na sua
essência, reconhecido e viabilizado por apoio político e apetrechado por meios
à altura das suas importantes e insubstituíveis funções.
António Sérgio
Rosa de Carvalho
25 de Maio de
2021, 17:05
O maior paradoxo
que anunciava um escândalo sem precedentes, uma situação que todos
implicitamente conheciam,( 1 ) constitui o facto que ele
estrondosamente se revelou no preciso momento em que António Costa, reboliço,
se insinuava no Porto perante o topo da Europa, apresentando a Europa Social.
Entretanto,
anunciou um ‘remendo’ para a situação, ( 2 ) pago
por fundos europeus, fundos de reconstrução e apoio ligados a imposições
ambientais definidas pelo Green Deal, para garantir não só a continuidade de
uma situação ambiental e humana inaceitável, mas para eventualmente triplicar o
grau de destruição de um Parque Natural e oficializar a ilegalidade massificada
num irresponsável e irrealista contraciclo perante os Acordos de Schengen.
Perante as
situações de Lampedusa, as Canárias e agora muito recentemente Ceuta, ( 3 ) o ministro francês do Interior diz que Espanha e
Itália “controlam mal” a imigração ( 4 ) e
promete retomar o controlo das fronteiras externas com a Presidência da França
da UE em 2022.
E aqui chegamos a
um dos muitos paradoxos inaceitáveis. Não temos, além do Algarve, uma
vulnerabilidade na nossa costa Atlântica comparável ao Sul do Mediterrâneo.
Portanto, não pensamos em termos de fronteiras externas. No entanto, desde 2017
e da alteração da Lei da Imigração, criámos, nós próprios, uma verdadeira
‘Fábrica de Legalizações’ para milhares de pessoas que sonham com uma vida na
Europa. Portanto, o ‘efeito de chamada’ num irresponsável e irrealista total
contraciclo com a Europa em relação ao qual o SEF foi avisando, e que custou a
cabeça à sua antiga directora, não só se confirmou, mas foi progressivamente
aumentando.
Não há dúvida que
as redes e as máfias especializadas em imigração ilegal e escravatura estão
instaladas no Alentejo,( 5 ) no Ribatejo ( 6
) e na imensa rede de lojas nas
cidades.( 7 )
Representamos,
portanto, uma ameaça, criada por nós próprios, que encaixa, embora de forma
original, no conceito de fronteiras externas e que se enquadra nas preocupações
expressas pelo ministro Gérald Darmanin. Preocupações negadas pelo PS, o PCP e
o BE.
Que o PCP e o BE,
na sua negação sistemática e hostilidade ideológica perante o Projecto Europeu,
se comportem com tal cegueira não é de admirar.
Mas que o PS e
António Costa, em plena Presidência Portuguesa da UE, se comportem desta
maneira é grave. Profundamente grave.
Num momento em o
próprio conceito da Democracia é questionado e atacado por muitos.
Vivemos um
momento em que a gestão dos frágeis equilíbrios sociais e humanos nas
sociedades multiculturais, com os conhecidos perigos de extremismo traduzido em
‘votos de protesto’, se encontra sobre uma pressão extraordinária.
Em França, essa
pressão é traduzida por manifestações públicas de protesto das forças
policiais, por cartas assinadas pelo topo das Forças Armadas, e agora, sem
dúvida, pelas preocupações explícitas do seu ministro do Interior.
Chegou portanto o
momento de voltar a rever a Nova Lei da Imigração e de garantir a continuidade
do SEF. Um SEF reformado na sua essência, reconhecido e viabilizado por apoio
político e apetrechado por meios à altura das suas importantes e
insubstituíveis funções.
Senão, podemos
estar perante um outro e grave paradoxo: as mesmas forças políticas que
vociferam indignações e rasgam continuamente as vestes pelos Direitos Humanos e
a Justiça Social transformaram-se nos principais coveiros da Democracia!
Historiador de Arquitectura
( 7 ) https://www.publico.pt/2021/05/15/local/opiniao/negocio-ha-atras-lojas-bugigangas-turistas-1962506
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