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26-06-2022, 09:19 PM
Diario:
ANOTHER HISTORY OF THE CANARY ISLANDS
By Mario Ferrer
When Fuerteventura and Lanzarote were the granary of the Canary Islands.
In a current context of great international famine, we remember the centuries in which the main contribution of cereals of the Archipelago came from its driest and easternmost islands.
Year 2022. The war in Ukraine and several other international problems have raised the price of raw materials and staple foods, especially cereals, which also indirectly affects another key nutritional sector; livestock, that is, dairy and meat. The consequences of its scarcity and price increase are seriously affecting different areas of the planet. The repercussions, although milder, have also reached the Canary Islands, an archipelago that was traditionally supplied by cereals grown in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
Today the crops of wheat, barley or rye are hardly testimonial in the easternmost islands of the Canary Islands, but for centuries they were fundamental in many aspects of their economic, social and territorial life. Its success was due to several factors. The powerful demand that sustained its production did not come from the scarce island market (they were islands with very fragile population censuses), but from the regional one, with large islands of wide demography such as La Palma, Gran Canaria, Madeira and, above all, Tenerife, which received the shipments in its main ports: Santa Cruz, Garachico or La Orotava.
Islands of greater economic and demographic weight dedicated most of their land to other more prosperous products for export to European markets, such as sugar or wine, which, in addition, required a water supply impossible to reach on islands as dry as the eastern ones.
But this strategy caused these larger islands, with Tenerife at the head, to lack land of crops for basic materials for the feeding of their population, such as cereals. Hence the expression 'Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the breadbasket of the Canary Islands', since they provided the rest of the Archipelago with that base of harvests, completing the regional supply system. In fact, cereals, like other typical elementary products of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (lime or salt, for example) were used to make exchanges with raw materials that were scarce in these islands and that did have the others, being a classic case that of wood.
The great forests of Tenerife, La Palma, Gran Canaria or Madeira were the source of supply for majoreros and rabbits. Nor can we forget that these were times when maritime transport was scarce and deficient, limiting the remoteness of the supply markets. There is even some historiographical debate regarding the impact that the declaration of Puerto Franco of 1852 had for Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, with some authors considering that it was a great commercial disadvantage for these non-capital islands, especially affecting the grain trade.
However, it should be remembered that this status as a regional granary did not represent an advantage for the island population, quite the opposite. It was common for the grain produced in the easternmost islands of the Canary Islands to be sent as a priority to other more buoyant islands, since the ownership of the land in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura fell into few hands and many of these large landowners, who often lived in Gran Canaria, Tenerife or the Peninsula, preferred to export to leave something for the poor island market.
The large owners (the lords of both islands or the Church, for example), resided outside Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which they saw simply as islands of exploitation, from which they could obtain capital to invest abroad. The historian Pedro Quintana Andrés, one of the great specialists in this period, speaks of "groups or institutions whose interest was in obtaining the greatest benefit at the cost of mortgaging the future survival of their inhabitants."
Small landowners were scarce in these islands and in the parameters of the XXI century the socio-labor conditions of the peasants conejeros and majoreros would be intolerable. As if that were not enough, the tax burden on islands of lordship such as Lanzarote and Fuerteventura was greater than in those of realengo, closing the pernicious circle of the rickety economy of these islands. In fact, many of the popular island rebellions experienced in these centuries had to do with times of emergency and drought, when sectors of the population of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura mutinied asking for grain supply and tax reduction, as main demands. The absentee oligarchy, in addition, took advantage of the usual crises and then bought, at advantageous prices, more land from small landowners ruined by droughts.
Rainfed crops
Although its golden age was associated with its long cycle as regional export products, especially from the seventeenth century, cereals have a long tradition in these eastern islands, because they perfectly adjusted to the dry conditions of both. Already the first settlers of the Canary Islands, called majos or maxies in the case of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, used these rainfed crops for their ability to adapt to their scarce rains. When the rains fell, plains and fertile lands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were planted with barley (Roman, rabuda, blonde or white), wheat, rye, millo or other varieties.
In addition to their adaptation to the harsh local climate, both before and after the European conquest, grains were key because they provided basic nutrients to islanders with very impoverished diets, providing them with products as basic as bread or gofio. At the same time they were capital for the feeding of cows, goats and other cattle, on which, in turn, the supply of milk, cheese or meat depended.
Despite its good accommodation to the dryness of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the cultivation of cereal faced many obstacles, the main one being the lack of water. When droughts lasted for several years and crops failed to thrive, the problems of famine and mass emigration worsened to catastrophic levels.
For centuries, the islanders strove to devise very ingenious systems, but tremendously laborious to put on their feet, with which to take advantage of every last drop: gavias, nateros, terraces, sandblasted ... All traditional agriculture is the chronicle of a titanic and dramatic struggle for survival in a very dry and hostile environment. In parallel to the suffering cultivation techniques, an impressive, and no less artisanal, 'water architecture' was also developed, both to store (cisterns, maretas, alcogidas...) and to extract liquid from the subsoil (wells, galleries).
In addition, cereals faced other dangers such as the parasite of the alhorra, the disastrous plagues of locust or the appearance of weevil, among others. As if that were not enough in Lanzarote, the gigantic eruptions of Timanfaya, between 1730 and 1736, buried many of the best cereal valleys of this island, although, in the long term, it produced a more productive agricultural cycle, with the wine and spirits that began to be produced in La Geria and surroundings.
If the crops overcame droughts, pests and volcanoes, they were treated with the utmost care and care, reaching communal guards and overguards, destined both to avoid possible theft of crops, and to prevent the harmful entries of guanil cattle to feed without control. In the years of good rains, there are records that attest to the arrival of many day laborers from other islands to help mainly in the collection, but also in other tasks of threshing, grinding, storage or transport.
The harvests were economic and social Events of the first magnitude, associated not only with many popular festivals, but with traditions of all kinds. Around the collective tasks of cereal were exchanged from knowledge of ancestral trades and tricks of traditional medicine, to romances of the rich oral literature and, why not, love affairs and courtships.
Mills
The footprint of cereals in the history and culture of the island is very wide, with architecture being one of the areas with the best examples. In addition to the eras (to thresh the harvests) and the cillas, taros, pajeros, granaries or pósitos (to store), for centuries mills, mills or tahonas were the great protagonists of the grinding of the grain, with a degree of energy sustainability that today is enviable.
Wind energy, on islands that receive almost permanent wind currents throughout the year, was the main engine to put into operation those gadgets so important for the feeding of the people, especially in essential products, such as bread and gofio. The mills had gears and systems more or less developed, from the most basic, installed after the conquest, to others more sophisticated of the last centuries.
In Fuerteventura valuable examples have been preserved in different municipalities and there are spaces that have mills that can be visited such as those of the Ecomuseum of Tefía and the Cheese Museum, although the large space is the Interpretation Center of the Mills, in Tiscamanita. All belong to the Island Council. In addition, on the world of cereal you can see the La Cilla Grain Museum, in La Oliva.
In Lanzarote there are far fewer examples rescued. The public offer of visitable mills is concentrated in the Cactus Garden, while in the private sector stands out the El Patio Museum, in Tiagua, and the Molina de José María Gil, in San Bartolomé. However, most of these structures in Lanzarote have been abandoned, despite the fact that recovery projects such as Cabo Pedro, in Arrecife, or the Caleta del Sebo mill, in La Graciosa, were devised.
On the other side of the scale, a few years ago two old examples have been recovered in Teguise and the privately owned Tiagua mill has also been restored, which had been badly damaged after the passage of Tropical Storm Delta in 2005.
link to article for pics
ANOTHER HISTORY OF THE CANARY ISLANDS
By Mario Ferrer
When Fuerteventura and Lanzarote were the granary of the Canary Islands.
In a current context of great international famine, we remember the centuries in which the main contribution of cereals of the Archipelago came from its driest and easternmost islands.
Year 2022. The war in Ukraine and several other international problems have raised the price of raw materials and staple foods, especially cereals, which also indirectly affects another key nutritional sector; livestock, that is, dairy and meat. The consequences of its scarcity and price increase are seriously affecting different areas of the planet. The repercussions, although milder, have also reached the Canary Islands, an archipelago that was traditionally supplied by cereals grown in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
Today the crops of wheat, barley or rye are hardly testimonial in the easternmost islands of the Canary Islands, but for centuries they were fundamental in many aspects of their economic, social and territorial life. Its success was due to several factors. The powerful demand that sustained its production did not come from the scarce island market (they were islands with very fragile population censuses), but from the regional one, with large islands of wide demography such as La Palma, Gran Canaria, Madeira and, above all, Tenerife, which received the shipments in its main ports: Santa Cruz, Garachico or La Orotava.
Islands of greater economic and demographic weight dedicated most of their land to other more prosperous products for export to European markets, such as sugar or wine, which, in addition, required a water supply impossible to reach on islands as dry as the eastern ones.
But this strategy caused these larger islands, with Tenerife at the head, to lack land of crops for basic materials for the feeding of their population, such as cereals. Hence the expression 'Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the breadbasket of the Canary Islands', since they provided the rest of the Archipelago with that base of harvests, completing the regional supply system. In fact, cereals, like other typical elementary products of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (lime or salt, for example) were used to make exchanges with raw materials that were scarce in these islands and that did have the others, being a classic case that of wood.
The great forests of Tenerife, La Palma, Gran Canaria or Madeira were the source of supply for majoreros and rabbits. Nor can we forget that these were times when maritime transport was scarce and deficient, limiting the remoteness of the supply markets. There is even some historiographical debate regarding the impact that the declaration of Puerto Franco of 1852 had for Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, with some authors considering that it was a great commercial disadvantage for these non-capital islands, especially affecting the grain trade.
However, it should be remembered that this status as a regional granary did not represent an advantage for the island population, quite the opposite. It was common for the grain produced in the easternmost islands of the Canary Islands to be sent as a priority to other more buoyant islands, since the ownership of the land in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura fell into few hands and many of these large landowners, who often lived in Gran Canaria, Tenerife or the Peninsula, preferred to export to leave something for the poor island market.
Quote:The majority of the island population did not always benefit from cereal cultivation
The large owners (the lords of both islands or the Church, for example), resided outside Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which they saw simply as islands of exploitation, from which they could obtain capital to invest abroad. The historian Pedro Quintana Andrés, one of the great specialists in this period, speaks of "groups or institutions whose interest was in obtaining the greatest benefit at the cost of mortgaging the future survival of their inhabitants."
Small landowners were scarce in these islands and in the parameters of the XXI century the socio-labor conditions of the peasants conejeros and majoreros would be intolerable. As if that were not enough, the tax burden on islands of lordship such as Lanzarote and Fuerteventura was greater than in those of realengo, closing the pernicious circle of the rickety economy of these islands. In fact, many of the popular island rebellions experienced in these centuries had to do with times of emergency and drought, when sectors of the population of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura mutinied asking for grain supply and tax reduction, as main demands. The absentee oligarchy, in addition, took advantage of the usual crises and then bought, at advantageous prices, more land from small landowners ruined by droughts.
Rainfed crops
Although its golden age was associated with its long cycle as regional export products, especially from the seventeenth century, cereals have a long tradition in these eastern islands, because they perfectly adjusted to the dry conditions of both. Already the first settlers of the Canary Islands, called majos or maxies in the case of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, used these rainfed crops for their ability to adapt to their scarce rains. When the rains fell, plains and fertile lands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were planted with barley (Roman, rabuda, blonde or white), wheat, rye, millo or other varieties.
In addition to their adaptation to the harsh local climate, both before and after the European conquest, grains were key because they provided basic nutrients to islanders with very impoverished diets, providing them with products as basic as bread or gofio. At the same time they were capital for the feeding of cows, goats and other cattle, on which, in turn, the supply of milk, cheese or meat depended.
Despite its good accommodation to the dryness of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the cultivation of cereal faced many obstacles, the main one being the lack of water. When droughts lasted for several years and crops failed to thrive, the problems of famine and mass emigration worsened to catastrophic levels.
For centuries, the islanders strove to devise very ingenious systems, but tremendously laborious to put on their feet, with which to take advantage of every last drop: gavias, nateros, terraces, sandblasted ... All traditional agriculture is the chronicle of a titanic and dramatic struggle for survival in a very dry and hostile environment. In parallel to the suffering cultivation techniques, an impressive, and no less artisanal, 'water architecture' was also developed, both to store (cisterns, maretas, alcogidas...) and to extract liquid from the subsoil (wells, galleries).
Quote:Cereals were exported to Tenerife, La Palma, Madeira, Gran Canaria...
In addition, cereals faced other dangers such as the parasite of the alhorra, the disastrous plagues of locust or the appearance of weevil, among others. As if that were not enough in Lanzarote, the gigantic eruptions of Timanfaya, between 1730 and 1736, buried many of the best cereal valleys of this island, although, in the long term, it produced a more productive agricultural cycle, with the wine and spirits that began to be produced in La Geria and surroundings.
If the crops overcame droughts, pests and volcanoes, they were treated with the utmost care and care, reaching communal guards and overguards, destined both to avoid possible theft of crops, and to prevent the harmful entries of guanil cattle to feed without control. In the years of good rains, there are records that attest to the arrival of many day laborers from other islands to help mainly in the collection, but also in other tasks of threshing, grinding, storage or transport.
The harvests were economic and social Events of the first magnitude, associated not only with many popular festivals, but with traditions of all kinds. Around the collective tasks of cereal were exchanged from knowledge of ancestral trades and tricks of traditional medicine, to romances of the rich oral literature and, why not, love affairs and courtships.
Mills
The footprint of cereals in the history and culture of the island is very wide, with architecture being one of the areas with the best examples. In addition to the eras (to thresh the harvests) and the cillas, taros, pajeros, granaries or pósitos (to store), for centuries mills, mills or tahonas were the great protagonists of the grinding of the grain, with a degree of energy sustainability that today is enviable.
Wind energy, on islands that receive almost permanent wind currents throughout the year, was the main engine to put into operation those gadgets so important for the feeding of the people, especially in essential products, such as bread and gofio. The mills had gears and systems more or less developed, from the most basic, installed after the conquest, to others more sophisticated of the last centuries.
In Fuerteventura valuable examples have been preserved in different municipalities and there are spaces that have mills that can be visited such as those of the Ecomuseum of Tefía and the Cheese Museum, although the large space is the Interpretation Center of the Mills, in Tiscamanita. All belong to the Island Council. In addition, on the world of cereal you can see the La Cilla Grain Museum, in La Oliva.
In Lanzarote there are far fewer examples rescued. The public offer of visitable mills is concentrated in the Cactus Garden, while in the private sector stands out the El Patio Museum, in Tiagua, and the Molina de José María Gil, in San Bartolomé. However, most of these structures in Lanzarote have been abandoned, despite the fact that recovery projects such as Cabo Pedro, in Arrecife, or the Caleta del Sebo mill, in La Graciosa, were devised.
On the other side of the scale, a few years ago two old examples have been recovered in Teguise and the privately owned Tiagua mill has also been restored, which had been badly damaged after the passage of Tropical Storm Delta in 2005.
link to article for pics