PISTACHIOS-SPANISH GREEN GOLD
Some time ago I read fascinating article in Spain’s El Pais newspaper about farmers in the Madrid region rushing to plant pistachio tress. The title simply asked, “Are pistachios the new ‘green gold’ in Spain?” Apparently, the pistachio tree can yield up to €6,000 in just one hectare and farmers such as Álvaro Díez from Colmenar de Oreja, a town with 7,500 inhabitants that sits 50 kilometres from the Spanish capital are busy planting an endless sea of pistachio trees. On his farm, located on a terraced field of the Tagus River, very close to Aranjuez, the plantation already has more than 25 hectares, and the crop has increased by 30% in the last few years in the Madrid region alone, thanks mainly to its high profitability. This represents just a small portion of the 30,000 hectares of pistachio trees that are planted across the whole of Spain. Most of the trees are found in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha, which introduced them in the 1980s. The pistachio is a...