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Agricultural News


Class 14 of the OALP has Found The Rain in Spain

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 6:13:02 CST

Class 14 of the OALP has Found The Rain in Spain Class 14 of the Oklahoma Agriculture Leadership Program continues their journey in Spain this week- and we have the latest info on some of the agricultural encounters they have had at several locations in the southern part of that country.


Clinton Griffiths of SUNUP is traveling with the group- and has shot some pictures for us of the most recent stops he is describing here, click here for the Flickr page we have set up for the OALP pictures- these latest shots have been added to the collection. The picture we have here is from the stop at an Orange and Citrus Coop near Granada.



Here's Clinton's latest word from the road:


On Sunday, February 21 the class checked out of its hotel in Algeciras and set out across the rainy Spanish terrain. Spain 2nd most populated country in Europe with around 45 million people and the number is still growing. Over the last 8 years 6 million new people have moved into the country coming mostly from North Africa.


The current rainy season is dumping water across much of the South leaving floods and causing transportation and infrastructure issues. The class's guide says rivers and natural springs are showing up for the first time in some 15 years.


Buses carried the tour through that flooded terrain, past cork oak forests and several of the country's wild bull ranches. Raise these infamous wild bulls, requires large parcels of land and many are up to 10,000 acres. The size is important because the goal of producing these animals is to touch these animals as little as possible creating a truly wild animal.


To do this, owners will put water on one side of the property and feed on the other, requiring the animals to walk great distances, over hilly terrain just to survive. The result are cattle built lean and strong. The bulls are put in groups of 7 early and sold to fight at age 5; hopefully have never been touched by human hands. As you can guess not all bulls make it to year five. Death-loss is near 50%.


The first stop was at Jerez de la Frontera, the capital of Spain's world famous Sherry wine production. The class toured Real Tesoro, a large producer with modern facilities. Many in Class 14 found the company's experiments with music to improve the quality of its wine and its focus on reducing headache-inducing histamines to be most interesting.


The facility also raises Spanish stallions for show and competition.


From there buses took the class to Seville Spain where it spent the last part of the day touring the city seeing places like the palace Alcalá de Henares and the Giralda cathedral built around an old mosque with a minaret nearly 300 feet tall.


On Monday, February 22, the class packed its bags and set out for Granada. The first stop was an orange and citrus cooperative. This year due to poor weather farmers have lost between 35% and 40% of their crops. This facility was founded in 1966 and has around 350 members. One of its best-known products is shredding the orange rind into small bits so it can be used in English marmalade.


The bus took the class deeper into Andalucia where 40% of the people still live on the land. The region is covered in farms including nearly three million acres of olive trees. That took the group to its next stop and an olive cooperative to see how olive oil is produced. While there, several local farmers brought in small trailers loaded with olives. Due to wet weather, fields are too wet for heavy equipment. The olives are swept from the ground and loaded by shovel into the trailer. This requires extensive sifting and cleaning to separate the olives from the litter.


   

 

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