“In other countries being a farmer is being a rich person, here it is like a punishment”

Anatolio is 58 years old and since he was a child he has always been in contact with the cultivation of potatoes and other field products “such as wheat, millet, lupine or barley.” His family is from the El Lance area and he always saw them “plant and sell potatoes”, with a special predilection for the oldest varieties, the ones that precisely started this crop in Europe in the lands of Icod el Alto more than 400 years ago.

Everything changed in 1999 with the arrival of the Guatemalan moth or Tecia solanivoraan introduced pest, also known as “the bug”, which is capable of destroy more than 50% of the crops. The measures taken so far, such as pheromone traps to capture the males, are insufficient, so farmers have to keep looking at the sky and the ground to try to save their crops. For years there has been talk of the alternative of treating bichada potatoes in closed containers with carbon dioxide or with the Nitrozone gas mixture (nitrogen, ozone and oxygen). That would make it possible to eradicate the bug and reuse the damaged potatoes, at least as seeds, but that solution has not yet materialized. “I no longer believe anything,” confesses Anatolio Luis.

The output of the rotation

One of the traditional ways of fighting this and other pests is the crop rotation. «We plant potatoes once but then it’s a year of wheat and another of lupine, or another legume, before going back to potatoes. This orchard that we harvest now will not be planted with potatoes again for another three years », he details. In his opinion, “rotation works, but if everyone doesn’t rotate, then no. Some are dedicated to intensive cultivation of white potatoes, which we call breed, and they plant potatoes on top of potatoes, and that helps there be more bugs.” They also complain about the lack of control of papas bichadas and their storage system, in open containers on the street, which could help spread the plague. Now they have put a protective mesh on it, but this royal farmer warns that “many times they steal it and they are exposed.”

Another negative factor that threatens potato cultivation on the island is “the change in import policies, because before they waited for potatoes to run out from here before starting to bring potatoes from abroad. There was a kind of moratorium. Now We cannot export our potatoes, because of the bug, and the ones from outside enter before. On top of that, less and less is cultivated.” However, exports are less relevant: «How many million tourists come every year? Only with that we would give an outlet to all the production ».

Competition from caste potatoes has also reduced the production of beautiful potatoes. “People were convinced that it was easier to grow and since they are only on the ground for three months, and the pretty ones need six, many are dedicating themselves to that,” she laments. «More caste than beauty is already planted, in Icod el Alto it is maintained, but in Benijos, in the orotavaThey have practically eliminated them. A factor that is not taken into account is that the casta potato lasts “about two months stored, but most of the pretty ones last up to six months.”

Anatolio Luis still plant 13 of the 29 varieties of old potatoes from the Canary Islands: «The two lilies, the three wigs, four pretty ones, two meloneras, the terrenta and the red baga one». Its seeds come from those that arrived in Los Realejos from South America 400 years ago: «We conserve the seeds and traditionally exchanges have been made, from the upper zone to the lower zone, and that is why it has endured for so long. Now it is assumed that the seed can only be sold by Cultesa, which they say is healthy. Everything changes, although it is true that people pay more attention to it because it is not the same to buy seed for 5 euros than for 35”.

Accustomed to working all year to raise his potatoes, Anatolio regrets that many people think that pretty potatoes are very expensive. “Us we sold it for around 4 euros per kilo. Expensive are the packet potatoes, you pay 2 euros for 200 grams and nobody complains.

Untimely rains

This year has been so bad for potatoes “because the rains have not come on time.” «It has rained, but before we planted, and that delayed planting and when the potatoes were tender, the heat came in the months of March and April. That delayed them and burned many of them. The last rains came too late and I don’t think they benefit many. And this is for him climate change, although many still want to deny it. In my orchards there have never been lizards and now there are some firebrands that laugh. The cockroaches will soon come, which are not there now either », he details.

These years of poor and depleted harvests pose a threat to the seed of old potatoes.: «Our elders, in the past, have had to sow up to the husks. The potato has the advantage that it can grow from the seeds of the fruit, which is called baga and looks like a tomato; of the whole or cut potato itself, and even of the turnip tops or the peel». The results of the current one will also affect the next harvests: “People are going to sow less because this stick coincides with the increase in the costs of everything.”

Anatolio is convinced that the potato has a future, “but the system does not work, everything is more expensive, everything is normative and many will plant potatoes only for consumption.” Bonita potatoes will reach record prices this year and will run out sooner than ever. They will hardly make it to Christmas.