Between high temperatures and half the country on vacation, the lavender fields reach their maximum splendor in the month of July. Tourists, impressed by hundreds of hectares flooded with tall mauve crops reminiscent of French Provence, crowd the Guadalajara town of Brihuega (2,300 inhabitants). It is an image that leaves you speechless. But, all that glitters is not gold. Behind the lavender tourism phenomenon, farmers see how the crop is no longer profitable. Desperation and frustration reign in the producers’ conversations: “We just want to be able to live off the countryside“, responds, crying out for solutions, Juan José de Lope, farmer and vice president of Paisajes de Lavanda de Brihuega.
The main use of lavender and lavandin, a hybrid resulting from mixing different types of lavender, is its transformation into essential oil. This liquid is one of the main ingredients of perfumes, cosmetic and drug products. A sector that has recorded extraordinary profits in the last year: a 12% growth in 2023, with figures that exceed 10.4 billion euros, according to data from the National Association of Perfumery and Cosmetics. However, farmers’ pockets do not appreciate this increase and they already speak of “survival” as a “challenge” that they do not have many guarantees of being able to overcome.
Good morning. We are clearing, with the intention of uprooting, practically the entire Lavandín crop because for various reasons it has stopped being profitable. We do not know if the sector will recover, but for now the old plantation is passing away. pic.twitter.com/DzOvTGE7s2
— Tractor driver from Castilla 🚜💨 (@AgricultorCast) October 7, 2024
The problems for growers have a clear beginning: the covid-19 pandemic. A couple of years earlier, prices for lavender and lavandin essential oil reached highs. Production was more than profitable —the kilo sold for about 40 euros— and the farmers, pushed by the wave of happiness, overproduced. Added to this excess supply were the consequences of confinement: no one bought perfumes in the country anymore. duty free from the airport, because almost no one was traveling. They were months in which no one needed to wear perfume or makeup because no one went out. But the field does not understand human problems and did not stop producing all types of crops. In 2022, sales of perfumery and cosmetics products rose. Companies ordered lavender and lavandin, but demand could not catch up with supply: warehouses were full of crops from overproduction in 2019 and lack of sales in 2020 and 2021. law of supply and demand prevailed: prices began to collapse until today, when a kilo of lavender is close to 8 or 9 euros, according to farmers.
“Two people live off tourism”
Tourism is not the solution for the vast majority of growers either, because none of them charge entry to the fields. “A farmer is not there to serve tourists,” admits Rodrigo Carrillo. The lavender festival has put the city of Brihuega on the tourist map of Spain, but the economic benefits have not affected rural workers. “Two people make a living from tourism,” says Carrillo. Similarly, the vice president of the Lavender Landscapes Association is forceful: “The only solution to the crisis we are experiencing is to remove the lavender fields and if tourism falls, let it fall.”
Tourists in lavender fields. (iStock)
Since 2012, a group of businessmen and farmers has organized the lavender festival. It started as something “among friends”, but starting in 2020 these companies organized themselves into the Lavender Culture Association to design the event. To cover expenses, the association receives a subsidy of 45.000 euros from the Guadalajara Provincial Council and another from the Brihuega City Council. In addition, tickets on this occasion do have a price: those for 2024 ranged between 50 and 70 euros, which included the performances of Damn me y Rozalen. In 2023, the guest artists were Taburete and Víctor Manuel. Likewise, in previous editions the event has had well-known sponsors such as Loewe, Porsche or American Express and the support of the Community Board of Castilla-La Mancha. About 2,000 people pass through the lavender fields of Brihuega every day, and on weekends the numbers grow exponentially. in the studio Lavender and local development, The authors estimate that in 2021 tourist activities in Brihuega reached 2.6 million euros.
A business from which farmers are left out of the benefits. Angel Corralpresident of the Lavender Culture Association, assures that they They live from the production of essential oil and who do not directly receive income from tourism. Juan José Lasopresident of the Provincial Association of Farmers and Ranchers of Guadalajara, speaks of “anger” of many growers in the face of tourism: “Those who work the crops themselves see how others are benefiting from their work, but they are hardly participants in these profits. Furthermore, anger also grows when politicians come to take the photowhile farmers feel that they are not helped.” In fact, last April the Popular Party presented a non-legal proposal in the Cortes of Castilla-La Mancha to increase aid from the 155 euros stipulated in 2017 to 310, However, the vote ended with a twist: the PSOE and Vox aligned themselves and voted against.
Working at a loss
Many farmers joined public aid from the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha after the scourges of the covid-19 pandemic. The economic amount of these subsidies, which was set in 2017 when the price of lavender reached its maximum, is 155 euros per hectare. “Considering what we sell now, With this aid we are working at a loss“says Juan José. According to data from farmers, maintaining one hectare costs about 1,200 euros per year and the income for each of them is 800 euros, so the losses are set at about 400 euros per hectare, far from the 155 they receive in aid. Ángel Corral also points out in this sense: “There is nowhere to put the essential oil. We are at a loss, but the initial investment was so large that we cannot start just like that.”
Lavender fields of Brihuega. (iStock)
The aid from Castilla-La Mancha has done a disservice to many growers, who now find themselves tied hand and foot without the ability to fully uproot the crop because tThey would have to return part of the subsidy. Juan José de Lope insists that the Paisajes de Lavanda Association has tried to convey these problems to political representatives of the Provincial Council, but without obtaining answers. From the Agriculture portfolio of the Provincial Council they assure El Confidencial that they have no competition regarding subsidies, while Tourism has not responded to this newspaper’s requests.
Although overproduction is the main problem identified in this crisis, there is also another factor that bothers some farmers: the introduction of cosmetics from synthetic oils that are produced on an industrial scale and have a lower cost for the production of perfumes or creams. Abelardo Carrillo, president of the National Interprofessional Association of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants (Anipam), maintains that the solution lies in correct labeling: “Everything that is not labeled as pure and natural It does not have the absolute guarantee of containing products directly derived from nature. “What we are asking the Administration is to help us differentiate it, so that the consumer can see it with the naked eye.”
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As a final factor, farmers focus on Bulgaria. “They play in another league“says Corral, who says that “Bulgarian crops have positioned themselves very strongly in the French market, which was our major buyer. They have a production much older and some lower costs, which allows them to set very low prices. We are helpless“, concludes the grower.
With the current situation, growers only see one option: cut corners. Santiago Carrillo specifies that of the 150 hectares he currently has dedicated to lavender, he will only keep 30. The rest will be used in another crop, such as cereal. Also pointing in this direction is Juan José de Lope, who of 150 hectares, in principle wants to conserve about 120. “My family has lived 60 years of this cultivation, but right now, although the fields are beautiful, it’s a lie. In Castilla-La Mancha, many farmers are working at a loss,” de Lope insists. Juan José Laso is more serene in the face of the crisis situation that this sector of the countryside is experiencing: “It is cyclical. It has happened before in the last 30 years and it happened with asparagus cultivation recently, until the field itself became self-regulated. In Guadalajara alone there are 3,100 hectares dedicated to lavender and perhaps it is too much for the demand there is,” he declares.
Between high temperatures and half the country on vacation, the lavender fields reach their maximum splendor in the month of July. Tourists, impressed by hundreds of hectares flooded with tall mauve crops reminiscent of French Provence, crowd the Guadalajara town of Brihuega (2,300 inhabitants). It is an image that leaves you speechless. But, all that glitters is not gold. Behind the lavender tourism phenomenon, farmers see how the crop is no longer profitable. Desperation and frustration reign in the producers’ conversations: “We just want to be able to live off the countryside“, responds, crying out for solutions, Juan José de Lope, farmer and vice president of Paisajes de Lavanda de Brihuega.
