Alcarràs (Lleida) rose to fame in 2022 for the acclaimed movie by Carla Simón, with 11 Goya nominations in 2023. Located 8 kilometers from Lleida, it lives within the countryside, as mirrored within the movie. It was additionally the main focus of controversy final summer time when the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena (ERC), accused the mayor Jordi Janés (Junts) of alliance “with the intense proper”.
Janés (Molins de Rei, 1977) made her debut as head of the municipal authorities in 2019 and has introduced her candidacy for the municipal elections in May 2023. Janés has additionally turn out to be a spokesperson for the farmer’s wrestle on account of filming. He denounces that the legal guidelines of the countryside are determined within the metropolis by people who find themselves unaware of their actuality.
Question: Tell us about Alcarràs.
Answer: We are a city that lives from companies to farmers and ranchers. Between 2000 and 2009 we went from being 5,000 residents to 10,000 as a result of actual property increase. We obtained folks from Lleida and immigration who got here to work within the fields and have stayed. 30% of the neighbors are immigrants, now we have 52 completely different nationalities. We have the biggest candy fruit cooperative in Europe and we’re additionally meat producers, with greater than 260,000 pig heads and 77,000 bovine heads.
Q: Is this your first time period on the City Council?
A: Yes. In 2019 we obtained 4 councilors and we agreed with an area celebration, Agrupació d’Electors, with whom we ruled for a 12 months and a half. Now we’re not authorities companions resulting from disagreements. Now we rule alone.
Q: You have already introduced your candidacy.
A: Yes, I’m presenting myself once more to enhance the outcomes and end the initiatives that now we have began.
A: We constructed the roundabout on the N-II, which connects with Lleida, simply the one on the film poster. It was a five-street intersection with many accidents. We have additionally completed constructing the second cemetery, to cowl the inhabitants progress of latest years, and lately they’ve introduced that we can construct a second institute. It is nice information as a result of the present one may be very careworn.
Q: The movie ‘Alcarràs’, by Carla Simón, has introduced the disaster within the countryside to the fore. Does it replicate the struggles of the locality?
A: The regression of the sector is fixed. The movie is a murals that explains what occurs in all places. The peasant is imposed environmental restrictions designed in cities that have no idea our actuality. A couple of months in the past they prohibited us from burning the stays of the pruning and they do not know that these of the olive tree must be burned if you don’t need a fungus to unfold and contaminate the remaining.
Q: What issues are worrying the farmers of Alcarràs lately?
A: We suffered from the value disaster. We produce natural high quality fruit, which will increase prices, however they purchase it from us at ridiculous costs. We misplaced 85% of the candy fruit crop final summer time to April frosts. The peasants attempt to survive, they’ve taken cattle to complement their revenue, they provide up plots to renewable vitality to make sure a retirement, however the younger folks don’t need to proceed the enterprise, it doesn’t give them revenue, not even to purchase a home. Now we’re seeing how massive firms purchase many hectares of crops to supply what they like however with out connection to the territory.
Q: What do you ask of the administrations?
A: Here now we have the issue of paperwork. It can’t be that in Catalonia a farmer has to attend 4 years to construct a farm as a result of they do not give him the permits. Many go to Aragón, which lets you current the reviews as you end the work. During the fruit marketing campaign, between April and September, the farmer can have as much as three inspections for unlawful work, when it doesn’t exist. They go for them, they do not allow them to relaxation. Three or 4 patrols arrive with armed brokers as if it have been an anti-terrorist operation.
Here no one sleeps on the road or in shacks. You cannot hold the useless on the peasants, we discover it very unworthy.
Q: Entities denounce each summer time the unlawful hiring of seasonal employees or folks sleeping on the streets of Lleida.
A: It will not be true what they replicate. They are folks sleeping within the metropolis, not within the municipalities. Many come searching for a job alternative however have by no means labored within the fields, you can’t name an individual who has by no means been to the fields a seasonal employee. In the municipalities now we have plans to accommodate them. The farmers already name their seasonal employees 12 months after 12 months and in the event that they repeat it’s as a result of they’ve a good job. The settlements ended years in the past. Here no one sleeps on the road or in shacks. You cannot hold the useless on the peasants, we discover it very unworthy.
We are damage by the message that’s given each summer time and due to the movie actuality has been seen. There is sweet vibes, there are not any ghettos and lots of have turn out to be neighbors, one thing I’m pleased with.
Q: What electoral guarantees have you ever made for the subsequent elections?
A: We need to do them with our toes on the bottom. With the rise in costs and the price of provides now we have much less capability to speculate however there are initiatives resembling a brand new sports activities corridor, the rehabilitation of the outdated city. We additionally need to be a benchmark in bioeconomy by reusing discipline waste.
Q: What round financial system initiatives do you’ve got underway?
A: The manufacturing of meat and fruit generates waste, resembling manure or waste from tree pruning. We remodel the stays of the pruning into pellets and now we have a plant that dries the manure and turns it into compost. From being a residue that may be aggressive for our soil, it’s reworked into high-quality and ecological natural compost. Marinade firms are already shopping for it from us. Then we even have biogas vegetation from manure, slurry and stays of depleted fruit. We receive methane, which might be inexperienced pure gasoline, which we are able to inject into the pure gasoline community. Only with our waste can we provide the city’s firms with this inexperienced gasoline.
Q: How is town council concerned?
A: The composting plant was the initiative of the ranchers. The Generalitat and the Diputación have been excited by it and now they put money into the vegetation along with the colleges to copy them in different factors. The metropolis council will deposit the natural fraction of the door-to-door rubbish assortment there and on the similar time we won’t must pay for the destruction of the natural fraction.
The controversy of the Minister Elena was a scorching summer time
Q: In the summer time, the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, accused you of sustaining relations with the intense proper.
A: It was a scorching summer time. Elena arrived in Alcarràs to carry the rally. Someone from her city’s celebration advised him that we have been related to the intense proper and he launched it, with out realizing the reality. I feel he lacked the class of the apology however I do not give it extra significance both.
Q: What is true of the celebration you accused of belonging to the intense proper?
A: Agrupació d’Electors is a folks’s celebration with very completely different profiles of purely municipal curiosity. It was an ERC assault as an insult in the direction of us however unfair in the direction of them as a result of there isn’t a one from the intense proper. I, who contemplate myself a Social Democrat, see some members of the Agrupació d’Electors extra to the left.
Q: They have been authorities companions for a 12 months and a half.
A: Yes, till 2020. We didn’t perceive one another with the chief of Agrupació d’Electors.
Q: Who are your major adversaries for these municipalities?
A: ERC, who have been the winners, and Agrupació d’Electors, which convey collectively very numerous profiles and have a purely municipal curiosity.