Strawberry season is in the summer, which of course fits perfectly. But we could already bring the feeling of summer home buy strawberries, as you already see them bright red in the supermarket. However, now the question arises can you buy strawberries today without a guilty conscience? In this article you will read about where the strawberries you can now buy in the supermarket come from.
Buying strawberries: that’s why you have to wait until summer
As soon as spring begins, you can buy the first strawberries in the supermarket. However, if you look closely, you will quickly see that most of them come from Spain. However, this means that farming has negative effects on the environment. That’s the problem Strawberries need a lot of water and the growing areas in Spain are very dry, which is a very bad combination for the environment. Thus, in addition to the emissions released when transporting strawberries from Spain, the high consumption of water is also very critical. However, there are still other reasons why you should not buy strawberries.
1. A bowl of strawberries is equivalent to a tub of water
Most of the strawberries you can buy in the supermarket today come from here Spain’s arid province of Huelva. The fruits are grown there in large monocultures, that is, one plastic tarpaulin tunnel follows another with intensive use of fertilizers and high water consumption. About 300 liters of water are needed to produce one kilo of strawberries.
Strawberry plantations are located around the Coto de Doñana National Park, which is One of the most important wetlands in Spain is Strawberries are grown there at a high price and sometimes illegally, and a sad consequence of this is that the groundwater is getting less and less. As a result, many animals lose their habitat because they have little water, putting the entire ecosystem at risk. The high level of plastic waste generated also contributes to this.
2. High pesticide load in strawberries
Another problem with these strawberries is that they are heavily contaminated with pesticides. In 2018, Öko-Test tested strawberries for more than 500 pesticides. Almost all of them came from the Spanish province of Huelva. The result showed that in the middle of the studied strawberries, mainly questionable pesticides stuck These are suspected to be carcinogenic or harmful to reproduction. Among them is the pesticide bupirimat, the use of which is not permitted in Germany according to Öko-Test.
3. Exploitation of harvest workers
Even with the supply chain law, workers still work on strawberry plantations in inhumane conditions. They work significantly more than what was agreed in the employment contract, up to 70 hours a week. However, overtime is not paid, only the agreed 40 hours.
Therefore, buying organic strawberries is not an alternative at this time
Although organic strawberries are largely pesticide-free, you should also avoid them in the spring, as they are thirsty and are grown in Spain. If it’s organic strawberries June or July from Germany come, you can enjoy it without a bad conscience. Because then strawberries also contain valuable vitamins, minerals and secondary plant substances.