The sun was splitting the stones as I arrived at a vegetable farm, 25km from Barcelona. I was on holiday in the area and when the hotelier told me her brother was a vegetable farmer, I asked if I could visit.

Paulo proudly showed me his neat fields of vegetables, his tractors, the packing shed and refrigeration unit. Monica, his wife, asked me to join them for lunch in the family kitchen. I asked how business was. They chatted (thankfully their English was better than my Spanish) about the difficulties of farming.

After three years of drought, the future of the farm is looking a little shaky. They had lost some crops shortly after planting this spring, and others from last autumn that were just short of harvesting. They were slightly amused when I told them our farmers had exactly the opposite problem with water.

Cauliflowers to cattle

We discussed research into new varieties and changing planting times. Droughts have become commonplace in recent years and while they pray they will not experience one this year, realistically, they do not believe the more moderate weather patterns of the 30 years before that will return.

I told them about the Irish farmer I had heard on the radio who was feeding his crop of cauliflowers to cattle as he couldn’t get a decent price for it. The problem – cheap imports from Spain.“How can our farmers compete with 19c cauliflowers brought from Spain?” I asked, up on my high horse defending Irish farmers. Monica retorted: “If our cauliflowers are selling in Ireland for 19c, do you honestly think we are making any money?”

That put a stop to my gallop.

Monica went on to say many farmers were selling at a loss rather than ploughing the vegetables back into the ground. They were being forced by the big buyers to sell at below cost while they competed with even cheaper imports from Morocco.

I sat there thinking Irish farm produce is being undersold by Spanish imports and Spanish farm produce is being undersold by Moroccan imports. Who is making money in this scenario? Not the farmers.

A few days later, I joined a tour of an organic vineyard. While the wine tasting was obviously an attraction, I was keen to chat with the vigneron about climate change, organic production etc. We stood at the edge of a field of vines and with a sweep of his arm he said the land all the way down the valley was their vineyard. Some of the vines were planted over 60 years ago and some as recently as three years ago.

He brought us to the field of three-year-old vines where a group of men were pulling up rows and rows of grapevines. With a catch in his voice, he told us all the vines had died in the drought. Year three is the year the vines start to produce grapes for harvest and the drought had killed the entire planting.

If the drought continues this year, he fears even the vines planted 60 years ago by his grandfather will be under threat. What is the future for his family and the 10 local people who work on the farm, he asked?

They have embraced technology with solar panels supplying all their energy needs and wastewater systems in place so nothing, not even the water from washing the dishes is wasted. A well is their only source of water as municipal supplies don’t serve the farmland. “The amount of water that is used in the showers of the people of the town every morning would keep my vines alive,” he said.

He wants the government to build systems to divert grey water from cities to farmlands. “Will my vineyard, that has been in my family for 16 generations, die with the vines?” he asked.

Important conversations

The conversations I had with these two farm families are very similar to ones with farm families in Meath, Galway, Waterford etc. Policy makers and elected officials need to have the same conversations and act. If they don’t, family farms will become a curiosity for tourists to drive past rather than the thriving food production units they should be.

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Magaret Leahy: the rain in Spain is not falling on the plains

We have too much rain while in Spain they have droughts. Irish growers are competing with Spanish imports and Spanish growers are competing with Moroccan imports, writes Margaret Leahy.