What to do when in the sky, only the sun shines? The parishioners of Jaen, in the arid lands of southern Spain had the idea of invoking their god to attract the clouds. They organized a procession on Monday to beg for rain with El Abuelo (the grandfather), an ancient statue of Christ carrying his cross.
Under the late afternoon sun, thousands of residents filled the streets of this city in the interior of Andalusia to see El Abuelo who had not gone out for rogations asking for rain since March 1949. “We are in the grip of a persistent drought and this procession aims to ask the Lord to help us and save us”, explained to AFP Ricardo Cobos, major brother of the brotherhood ofEl Abuelo. “We depend a lot on olive trees and olive oil and it’s an economic disaster when the land lacks water,” he adds. Antonia Contreras, a housewife from a nearby town, firmly believes in divine intervention: “I came here to see the Lord and I really believe that he will give us water”.
The invocation of the goddess UE
Spain, which exports a good part of its agricultural production to the rest of Europe, is suffering from a catastrophic drought which is worrying farmers and the authorities. According to Coag, the main farmers’ union, 60% of Spanish agricultural land is currently “asphyxiated” by the lack of rainfall. And the country’s reservoirs are only filled to 50.1% of their capacity, or even 24.8% in the Guadalquivir basin in Andalusia. Spain also experienced an exceptionally early heat wave last week, with temperatures above 37°C in places.
The Spanish government last Tuesday asked the European Commission to activate the Common Agricultural Policy’s “crisis reserve” to help its farmers. Alongside this request, the Spanish government has announced a series of tax boosts for its farmers, including a 25% reduction in income tax, which should benefit 800,000 professionals.