The words of entry are from FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The note goes on as follows: “The rate of soil degradation today threatens the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

Conservation of natural soils and sustainable management have become sustainability objectives around the world. However, as a people, it is up to us to define the objectives at that level and to implement comprehensive and consensual action plans.

The first question is there. Since the early days of the Common European Agricultural Policy (1962), the CAP has been developed as a result of our economy being assured in food supply, in the conviction that the international economy and our economic capacity would guarantee food.

This belief, in addition to generating huge funding for food, has generated a large number of problems in the chain, such as the hunger of the poorest peasants, the pollution of ecosystems, soils and atmosphere, and the displacement of local communities, among others. Everything serves to meet the ambitions of the rich West.

These conclusions are well known. On the contrary, there are other consequences that we do not like to acknowledge. In fact, in the case of Euskal Herria, thousands of farms have been lost, both in the wet climate and in the Mediterranean. So great has been the contempt for baserritars and their work. Many of the local products have lost their presence in the food or economy they produce. But the consequences don't end there. Confident in the system we have built with the supply of food anywhere, we have been led to irresponsibly deteriorating or to directly artificialise rural land. Some champions of Basque areas are being artificialised, especially on the wet coast. Lurzaindia recently denounced that in the Aturri Commonwealth agricultural land has been reduced by 21% in the period 2000-2010. Between 1990 and 2018 the Basque Country has accumulated a total of 43,777 ha. The countries with the largest mountain area (Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Lapurdi) are the most affected by this loss.

At the local level, drawing our future, do we define what amount of rural land do we need to feed our citizens sustainably? Maybe that's the core of the matter. When we reflect on the sustainable future of municipalities and counties, we do not consider the fate of sustainable food supply and, therefore, the heritage of natural soils that we have for it.

The conservation of mountain forests and natural spaces does not meet what we need from nature, and local food is one of the pillars of all this: a column that we do not take into account. But in order to do so, rural land must be preserved and its value recognized. Because rural land is not a building site, before that it is the basis of our food sovereignty for tomorrow.

The General Urban Management Plans (PGOU) are the most comprehensive, complex and robust planning exercises carried out in the municipalities. It defines the urban needs of the municipality and the projects to be developed to meet them. If sustainable and healthy food has disappeared from our agenda since the entry into force of the common agricultural policy, this fact has conditioned our vision of spatial planning. Let the municipalities that have decided to protect enough land in the PGOU be put to work in order to feed the population. Despite the fact that current legislation has led to this, this debate has remained remote from our society (it is worth noting the importance that the Agrarian and Food Law adopted by the Basque Parliament in 2008 recognises rural land and is not used in the defence of rural land). Let's admit that.

In urban planning we tend to identify the areas called “non-urbanizable”. However, observing the evolution of the last two decades, we have seen that the space “non-urbanizable” is a flexible category, a space that urban growth makes its own when it needs it, despite the destruction of plain and paved ground for it.

However, rural land is limited and even more limited to the plain cultivated and ploughed land. Just as an operation such as the PGOU seeks to perpetuate the biotope and the rest of the natural singularities, it should also try to perpetuate the rural land by minimizing losses and reusing what has already been built.

Gaindegia and EHNE-Bizkaia work on the development of documentary resources that can help along this path. With the support of the Basque Development Cooperation Agency, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Mundu Bat Foundation, we are developing a model of documentation and making available the main food variables in urban planning. It is time that the urban practices of the Basque Country with regard to rural land began to transgress with the main objectives of sustainability, which requires documenting these aspects.

What we are doing is experimental and we have demonstrated it in Karrantza, Elorrio, Errigoiti and Larrabetzu. We would like to make a first proposal to construct a model of standard documentation that can be used in the future both in the PGOU and in the strategic food plans of the municipalities of Euskal Herria.

At this time in which we live, the current situation has become an exciting challenge. Will municipalities and counties be able to supply their inhabitants with healthy and sustainable food through good management of their rural environment? It is undeniable that in addition to the need for healthy food, short circuits, rural land management, food processing, new baserritars, the generation of employment associated with food… provide a prime asset to municipalities and counties. In the future, the Basque municipality may be a model of healthy and sustainable food, provided that the role of rural land is recognized. And we'll also be more independent, by the way, it's in our hands.

Alazne Intxauspe (EHNE-Bizkaia)

Imanol Esnaola (Gaindegia)