

Manuel Martínez points to the distant, snow-dusted peaks that rise above the pines and palms and gives voice to a thought to chill the hearts and panic the stomachs of vegetable lovers.

“We get snow like this maybe every 15 years. But if there’d been frost, that would have been it. No one in Europe would have anything green to put in their mouths.”

Apocalyptic as they may sound, the farmer’s words aren’t all that far-fetched.

Murcia, in south-eastern Spain, is one of Europe’s biggest vegetable-producing regions – a land of lettuces, courgettes, cabbages, peppers, tomatoes and artichokes.

After suffering three years of drought, moisture has recently returned in vengeful abundance: heavy rains in December dumped more rain on Murcia in six weeks than it had seen in the previous 156; floods wiped out half the Christmas lettuce crop and then, a few weeks later, came the heaviest snows in more than 30 years.

Manuel Martínez (left) and Juan Antonio Luján at Campo de Cartagena, in Murcia. Photograph: Sam Jones/The Guardian

As the snowflakes settled, crops in Murcia and neighbouring Valencia and Almería began to suffer, and prices to rise. The bad weather also hit producers in southern France, Italy and Greece, leaving British supermarket shelves light on courgettes and other vegetables, prompting warnings of shortages and higher prices until spring.

The scale of the problem was laid bare earlier this week by Spain’s ministry of agriculture. According to statistics, the price of a kilo of aubergines surged 132% between 8 January and 15 January, while courgette prices were up by 60% and some tomatoes by 45%.

“The figures reflect the consequences of the cold snap across Europe,” an agriculture ministry spokeswoman said. “When it comes to some products, such as broccoli, there’s only Spanish produce left on the market but even that’s in shorter supply because of the cold.”

The market has proved merciful for Juan Antonio Luján, who has worked Murcia’s land for 41 of his 58 years. He has lost some plants to the cold and to leaky roofs, but dwindling supplies have sent prices rocketing.

Juan Antonio Luján’s seven-hectare courgette farm has escaped relatively unscathed by the cold weather. Photograph: Sam Jones/The Guardian

A cold, damp wind rattles the greenhouse door and ripples its plastic roof as he bends down to check one of his many precious courgette plants. The flowers it bears are pale orange, its fruit a speckled green and very nearly ready to pick. “If we get the sun overhead and some good temperatures, this one will be ready in three days,” he says.

Given recent climatic events, it’s a big “if”. But Luján is glad the mercury is rising, the snow is melting in the forests and the ground of his seven hectares (17 acres) of courgettes isn’t hard with frost. The vegetables can’t tolerate cold or too much moisture and a prolonged cold snap would have been nothing short of catastrophic. “We’d have lost everything in a matter of hours.”

Prices are now good for Luján. “They’ve never been this high. In November, it was 70 or 80 centimos a kilo; in December, it went up to 90 centimos or €1. Around Christmas it was up to €1.80 and in January it’s been up to €3.80.”

Others have been less fortunate. Luján knows of one producer who recently lost his entire crop of young courgette plants to the weather.

His fellow farmer Martínez – who grows artichokes, makes wine and heads the local branch of Asaja, Spain’s biggest farming association – looks back on 2016 as “a bit of a heads-and-tails year … the rains came and made up for the drought we’ve had for the past three years”.

If the rains were perhaps a little overabundant, he adds, at least they’ve allowed farmers in one of the hottest, driest corners of Spain to fill their water reserves for the coming months.

But Martínez is keeping a close eye on the mountains to see how long the snows stay. Normally it’s just a couple of days; this year he thinks it could be a week or so.

Reports gathered by Asaja suggest it is vegetable farmers who have felt the effects most keenly.

A healthy-looking courgette plant, ready for harvesting in a few days (if the cold weather keeps away). Photograph: Sam Jones/The Guardian

“Other crops – such as cereals – have been sown and aren’t being affected by the snow and frosts, which actually helps them take root,” said an Asaja spokeswoman. “Citrus fruits are OK because the fruits are sufficiently mature to withstand the weather.”



Luján is fairly confident that the worst is now over. As his workers cut courgettes by hand, collect them in buckets and load them in crates on to a lorry, he remains phlegmatic. “No one knows what will happen next as the weather changes all the time and no two days are the same.”

The only thing that appears to baffle him is news of what people in the UK and elsewhere are doing to their courgettes. Spiralising and the notion of courgetti are new and alien concepts. When the trend is sketched out to him, the farmer frowns as if pretty sure his leg is being pulled.

“I like courgette cooked any way, but I’ve never tried that,” he says, before adding, more than a little unconvincingly: “I’d give it a go. But I think it’s better grilled. Or in a omelette.”