If you’ve only ever seen oranges on the fruit and veg counter in Tesco, no doubt the first time you saw them growing in Spain it was something of a novelty. But to Spaniards oranges are more than just a fruit. They also have a long and juicy history...

“FANTASTIC! It’s like paradise on earth!” cried a retired Swede when he saw the firstever real-life orange groves he had ever come face to face with in his life. We were in Carcaixent (Valencia province), the epicentre of Spanish orange-growing.

For as far as the eye could see the earth was covered in dark green leaves and round, friendly smiling oranges. Here and there, slender palm trees were scattered around among the orange groves, standing tall and isolated, reminding one of giraffes.

And some smallholdings and old summer houses reposed in the sun while the sound of the gently flowing streams nearby provided the background music.

The icing on the cake was that it was a springlike January morning. “Fantastic!” cried the retired Swede.

To us indigenous folk it is difficult to understand the enthusiasm that our orange groves awaken in others. Like the sea, we’ve seen it all our lives and are desensitised to it. But no, the landscape, covered in orange groves,  like the sea, is simply splendid and even the Arab poets of Mediaeval Spain who lived here used to sing their homage to these lands.

Also, we should bear in mind that oranges are an autumn and winter fruit, which ripens during the time that is in theory less prosperous for farmers and additionally they serve as a very effective natural medicine for preventing and helping to cure those dreaded coughs and colds typical of this time of year.

The retired Swede had heard talk that oranges were not bearing fruit, in the economic sense, and their cultivation was on the decline. I explained to him what we usually tell everyone – that some thirty or forty years ago there were people with 20 acres of orange groves who lived incredibly well.

However, now, those small landowners do not even earn enough to pay their costs – that is, they actually lose money when there are no oranges hanging from the trees. Those who understand such things say farming is on its way out or it becoming a Third World industry.

Also, along the entire Mediterranean coast, although mainly on the Valencian coast, building-fever has taken control of both people’s minds, and also of the orange groves.

I pulled two ripe oranges off a tree, gave one to the retired Swede and started to bite into mine, and he copied. The one I ate was delicious and, judging by his face, so was the retired Swede’s. I tried to explain to him what the great Cataluña-born chef Carme Ruscalleda says, literally: “Nowadays, all the fruit on the planet is able to come when we call it, even if we need it in the middle of winter. But on one condition, though – the same one as the Devil made to Fausto: ‘it loses its soul, it loses its taste.’” I think he understood me.

And I also told him that this tiny robbery of ours in the middle of the orange groves was practically a custom that was accepted by everyone as perfectly normal. You see, I explained to him, we are in the middle of a piece of paradise on earth...and he smiled, relieved at not having committed some heinous crime.

I couldn’t resist telling him that, however many economists I’ve consulted, none of them had been able to help me understand the reason why agriculture, which demands a considerable economic and physical effort and fighting against the elements and the whims of the weather, does not produce an equal or superior income as does industry, a job with few risks and substantial gains. Especially when an orange pulled from a tree is worth a hundred of
any industrially-produced product.

Here, writing this article, I have consulted the internet and discovered with great satisfaction that farmers who offer personal trading via the web and distribute oranges directly from the tree to the dining table of their clients within 24 hours, are legion.

One of these farmers writes on his website: “Our method of cultivation is that which our parents showed us, which their fathers before them showed them, and is about treating both the land and the fruit with plenty of care, always fertilising them with natural fertilisers... fruit picked directly from the tree, with no treatments or false ripening methods, nor cameras nor any other strange things, so that you can all eat it just as we all eat it at home.”

Oranges on the net
Nowadays you can buy fresh oranges on the internet and the farmer will deliver to your door. Here are some useful e-mail addresses:

info@lamejornaranja.com
infoecotaronges@econaranjas.com
info@naranjaslola.com
contacto@naranjaslydia.com
productos@huertodecastillo.com
pedidos@naranjaslatosca.es