Recent comments made by Spain’s Environmental Minister, Cristina Narbona, and broadcast on national radio have been greeted with strong protests from horticulture farmers in Murcia, and yesterday the Agricultural Minister had to «correct» Narbona’s original statement regarding the possible cause of contaminated products exported from Spain.

At the weekend Cristina Narbona was interviewed on Cadena Ser radio station, and confirmed what had been until then a rumour – that farmers in southern Spanish region Murcia were using untreated sewage to water their crops. Murcia, often described as the «market garden of Europe» is one of the worst hit regions suffering from the severe drought in Spain. Dry reservoirs, a booming tourist industry (where green golf courses contrast with their desertified surroundings) and the lowest levels of rainfall in the whole of Spain during the past few years have all contributed to the drought in this region.

The Spanish minister was defending the government’s decision to supply Murcia with water taken from the River Tajo in Castilla la Mancha. The Regional Government of Castilla la Mancha, despite being in the hands of the Socialist party, opposes the decision of Spain’s central government to divert water for agricultural as well as personal use, arguing that farmers in Castilla la Mancha are also suffering from the drought and it is unreasonable to expect them to «share» their water with farmers in Murcia.

Cristina Narbona in declarations warned that more and more farmers in Murcia, where vegetable and fruit crops are vital to the regional economy, would turn to the use of untreated sewage if clean irrigation water were not made available. She also said that the government had received «complaints about products from Murcia sold abroad that have generated health problems».

El Pais, Spain’s most popular newspaper, later published an article in which farmers admitted mixing sewage from their own homes with irrigation water.

Since then farmer union representatives and Murcian regional government members have criticised the minister’s declarations, claiming that produce grown in and exported from Murcia is subject to the strictest quality controls, and a couple of isolated cases could not be used to generalise.

However, Finland and Britain have confirmed recent outbreaks of salmonella possibly linked to imported lettuces from the Murcian region.

Yesterday Spain’s Agriculture Minister, Elena Espinosa, was interviewed on Cadena Ser. She confirmed that Finland had reported a case of salmonella detected in a batch of iceberg lettuces imported from Spain but said that it was too early to link the outbreak to contaminated water.

She also corrected her cabinet colleague, saying that Narbona meant to say that in some areas of Spain, farmers were using «treated water», which was not the same as sewage. Espinosa said that this practice was authorised in Spain and controlled by regular chemical analysis carried out by regional government departments.

The results of the investigations into the cause of the salmonella will be ready in the next few days.