Luis G. Morera |
Tazacorte (La Palma) (EFE).- Of the 4.2 hectares of the banana farm of Gregorio Hernández, the volcano left him with “some twenty or thirty plants and the water tank”, that is, less than 5% of the surface unoccupied by lava. Now he already has the permits and the illusion to recover the rest of the farm “just as it was done decades ago.”
After more than a year and a half since the eruption of the Tajogaite volcano ended, in La Palma, there are more than 1,000 hectares within the emergency exclusion area, although five banana farms have recently been released on the edges of the lava flows so that their owners can recover them.
One of those five parcels that are no longer part of the exclusion area is the farm located on the road to San Isidro, municipality of Tazacorte, owned by Gregorio Hernández, who, although he points out that “getting here has been a process that has lasted a long time. ”, he acknowledges that “it could not have been done any other way either”.
The owner of this banana farm recounts the different phases and requirements necessary to be able to start his project to recover the farm, currently buried under the lava flows of the volcano, which he has needed “from the application for a building permit, drafting projects, requests aid and finally temperature studies”.
These temperature studies, which are carried out on the surface and in depth of the basalt walls, have reached 80 degrees Celsius in the hottest points, in the deepest measurements, “but three days later that same hole had already cooled and its temperature was closer to the surface”, comments Hernández.
Although the lava flows buried most of his farm, “what is important and what is left are the people,” recalls this owner, who adds that “if more than 70 years ago the wasteland could be transformed into the farm that it was, now we It’s up to us the same, because we have the land and the resources”.
“When there is enthusiasm and people recover at least one project, the results will arrive and it will be a very beautiful day,” he reiterated.
This banana producer admits “I don’t know the deadlines until it is planted again because I am not an expert in sorriba”, but considers that “there are many older people who have experience in it, and this project can be carried out by doing things right , without going crazy, and without being in too much of a hurry”.
Sorribar consists of leveling the land and covering the badlands created by the laundering with around 50 centimeters of earth, in the case of banana trees, to convert the rocky terrain into a cultivable orchard.
Gregorio Hernández, like the rest of the farmers, is aware that “obtaining land is a more or less complicated matter” but trusts the studies carried out by the Government of the Canary Islands to locate deposits of land on the island, and assumes that the Extraction should be more respectful than what was done decades ago.
“What has happened here is a natural and human catastrophe, we all know that, but it is also a geological process that will continue to happen in the future,” reflects Gregorio, who points out that “now we have to say ‘gentlemen, we are back ‘ and demonstrate that we have the capacity, with intelligence, and with improvements to how it was done before”. EFE