Recently, biometering plants are increasing in Navarra. Thus, in addition to the facilities of Biomendi in Mendigorría, HTN in Caparroso and E-Copreci in Cabanillas, new plants have been announced in Imotz, Lerín and Valtierra and the existing one in Cabanillas will be expanded.

Most of these plants are located next to large livestock farms. Theoretically, with the objective of decomposing organic matter produced by livestock and producing biogas, mainly to generate electricity and pour into the electric grid. This process also generates heat and is generally reused in the facilities themselves. Meanwhile, the final residue resulting from this process, digestate, can be applied as an amendment to soils. This presentation is unbeatable: an excellent example of circular economy and green alternative, renewable energy production, which avoids problems in waste management...

However, it is difficult to objectively assess the suitability of these plants without taking into account the context in which they are implemented and their consequences. Because not all reflexes are clean energy. It is impossible to speak of biomethanization in Navarra, without taking into account the dynamics and the constellation of conflicts that this has generated: extension of macro-farms and extension of the hyperintensive livestock model, generation of large quantity of organic waste, negative impact on fertile soils, etc. In a situation like this, the installation of biometering plants, linked to industrial livestock, would coincide with the so-called capitalism of ruin: those who promote this type of project seek an added benefit from the problems and disasters they generate.

To present the development of industrial livestock in Navarra in the last decades, one fact: Between 1988 and 2022, cattle grew by 41.91% and pigs by 271.21%. At the same time, the population of Navarra has increased by 29.46%. This shows us that an export-oriented livestock model has been imposed, not on domestic consumption, which has led to a chain of negative effects such as the disappearance of family farms, the concentration of animals, the excessive increase of organic waste, the urgent need to eliminate them, the intensive use of cleaning water... All this generates waste that is difficult to compost, which leads to pollution of water resources, as we are seeing in the Ultzama River basin or in Villafranca and Marcilla.

The year 2007 is crucial. The government of Rodríguez Zapatero approved Royal Decree 661/2007 establishing a remuneration framework to promote the profitability and dissemination of renewables. Considering methane production as a renewable energy, large livestock enterprises saw the possibility of introducing bio-metering plants for the production of biogas with slurry, a high-subsidy energy. A good way to extend activity and benefits. This process, however, was not left out of the crisis, as the regulations that reduced premiums for energy generation were later amended. It recalls the failure of the Bioenergy of Ultzama, plagued by irregularities and which suffered so much from the City of Ultzama.

We are currently in a situation similar to that which occurred in the first years of 2000, at the beginning of a new bubble of renewables. Companies have unchecked the construction of new infrastructures in the heat of energy planning and their financial support. And biometering isn't out, as you can see.

Biometering plants are presented as solutions, although in their shadow there is only one business opportunity to extend the life cycle of products. As proof of this, it is sufficient to note that in Navarre there are those who, taking advantage of a legal vacuum, are using biometering to treat not only their own purines, but all kinds of non-toxic organic industrial waste. A paradigmatic case we have in the biometering plant of Mendigorría: In 2020, in the last year with available data, in addition to the treatment of own pig slurry, there were 31,319 tons of industrial waste from Navarra and 37,389 tons from other autonomous communities, mainly from the CAPV and Cantabria. And the case of Mendigorría is no exception.

The integration of biometering plants into livestock farms in Navarra is an unacceptable social and environmental cost. It responds to a crazy wheel: biometering responds to the serious problem of the accumulation of organic waste generated by industrial livestock. However, this type of business is profitable only because it manages waste from other industries and is charged for it. This causes an increase in the amount of spontaneously large purines that should be deposited in the soils. In addition, the pollutants emitted along with them are increasing and the transport of waste from hundreds of kilometres is also increasing.

Therefore, this model does not respond to the needs of the livestock sector, but rather to the large facilities. Nor to sustainable local development, which removes family farms. Nor does it concern water safety, as it pollutes soils and aquifers with nitrates. Nor the need to keep soil nutrients healthy, to pour a digestate that mixes industrial waste and heavy metals.

As we said at the beginning, the situation is far from encouraging. The announcement of new bio-metering plants has been made in conjunction with new applications for the installation or extension of macro-farms. From November 2021 to August 2023, a minimum of 16 new intensive livestock facilities or extensions involving 60,899 pigs and 5,537 additional cows have been requested.

In view of this, the new Government of Navarra has the opportunity to direct the policies it has carried out to date and which have yielded such poor results. Facilitating or not adequately controlling the installation of biometering plants is feeding the expansion of macro-farms. In this sense, a strategic framework such as the primary sector is mortgaged, the territory is unbalanced and new speculative bubbles are fed. At the same time, it should give strong support to extensive livestock farming, the only sustainable alternative to industrialised livestock production, capable of contributing to other challenges such as combating rural depopulation and the climate crisis. But that requires will. This has not been proven so far.

Mikel Saralegi and Jesús Arbizu (Txurio), members of the Subai Erakuntza Foundation