(25 Feb 2022) Green is a color that disappears every year in the south of Spain. The lack of rain and desertification make the environment arid.
On the border between Malaga and Granada there has been a small orchard for decades: La Costa Tropical.
Tall green trees bearing avocados, mangos, or custard apples range from the Axarquia in Malaga to the Costa Tropical in Granada.
Joaquín is a 50-year-old farmer.  When he was only 14 years old he started working on his father's tropical fruit farm.
He remembers the drought every several years, the last one in the 1990s when, he says, they would lose their plants.
Now, two decades later, the rains have not come, but he has a solution: Transfer the water from the Sierra Nevada (Granada) and the Verna Rula water dams to the Costa Tropical.
This farmer says this is the only solution to alleviate the effects of climate change.
The irrigation community supports the initiative.
The aquifer that supplies tropical fruits is empty and salt water has already arrived.
"in February, we are already experiencing the intrusion of seawater into the aquifer, so we are seeing our way of life endangered" Angel Rodriguez, Irrigation Community Spokesperson.
The avocado leaves are green, but Joaquín holds a very dry one.  He says that it is at 50% of its capacity, due to the salt in the aquifer water and the lack of freshwater rain.
50 kilometers from this farm is the Pantano de La Viñuela, in the province of Malaga.
It is the dam responsible for storing water in the Axarquia region.
This reservoir is known as the avocado swamp and is at 15% of its capacity.
Drought is a big problem in southern Spain, an agricultural and tourist area.
For now only the cultivation of tropical fruits is under threat but soon there may also not be enough water for people to drink in an area that doubles its population in summer.

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