Farming report from Tortosa, southern Catalunya.
November 7th 2008. The olive harvest has begun, locals and newcomers alike are working to get in the ripening fruit. The weather helps, sunshine and light breezes. Unfortunately after some October rain, the fruit is swelled with water, so the oil content is relatively low, and of course the price follows the quality.

Why delay your move?

Catalunya is an autonomous region of Spain in the North East of the country, bordering France in the North and stretching south along the Mediterranean coast to Vinaros. The principal city of the region is Barcelona, Tarragona is itself a major commercial and port city.

In the Baix Ebre area, Tortosa is the administrative centre, and the towns of Amposta and St Carles de la Rapita are thriving commercial centres, St Carles being in addition a centre for marine activities, with its thriving large Marina. Slightly further north along the coast, are the two fine small resorts of L'Ampolla and L'Ametlla de Mar, and the small town of El Perello, which is a centre for agriculture and some viniculture.

The main economic artery of the region is the River Ebre which is the longest river system in Spain, and which provides irrigation water to large areas of the hinterland. It also provides water to the Delta of the river, which is a large area about 20 km north to south between L'Ampolla and St Carles, and the same from the original coastline to the mouth of the river. This area is almost all occupied by rice paddy, the Delta is thought to be the largest rice growing region in Europe, and this accounts for the popularity and ubiquitousness of the traditional 'Paella' dish.

Access to the region is now easy, either by road or by air. The motorway system is continuous from the Channel ports to Southern Spain, or for a more leisurely route, the ferries  to Santander or Bilbao leave an easy journey to our area. 

By air, there are numerous options from the United Kingdom. British Airways, Easyjet and a number of other carriers offer flights to Barcelona, which is less than two hours by road from Tortosa.  Reus, is a smaller airport just one hour from Tortosa,  and Ryanair have daily services from Stanstead and Luton, Glasgow, Liverpool and Dublin.

Water, Gas and Electricity

A word on the subject of main services. In the towns and villages, properties will normally have installed or available mains water, mains electricity and town drainage.

In the country areas, the 'Campo' to use the Spanish expression, it is more usual to rely on self provided services. There are a number of schemes under way to bring irrigation water by pipe to properties in the country, and this provides domestic water for all purposes except drinking. Away from this new service, many of the rural properties shown on our register have water storage in old 'cisternas' or other storage media, and rainwater is collected from roofs.   Rain is however infrequent, and it is easy (and cheap) to have water delivered by tanker during dry periods. Once modernisation of property has taken place, the internal plumbing need give no clue to lack of main supply, everything works just as it would with a piped supply. 

Electricity supplies are more widely available than piped water, but even so, a number of properties for sale are outside the range of mains distribution of electricity. Again, internally, there need be no difference, a full domestic installation at 230volts is perfectly feasible, but the power will be provided either by independent generation (diesel and petrol machines are readily available) or by solar panels and wind power, or more often a combination of generator and natural sources.

Anyone living in rural parts of Britain will of course be familiar with the use of septic tanks for drainage, and these are common in this part of Spain. The latest consist of a holding tank and a 'biological filter' chamber which means that the overflow water is at a high level of cleanliness.

Gas is again often available piped in the towns and larger villages, but outside these areas, bottled gas is used for cooking as well as for refrigeration and water heating. Supplies are controlled by the state and the product is heavily subsidized at present, so that costs for this form of energy are low.

As a counter to these service arrangements, it is important to remember that property taxes in Catalunya are very low, a great relief to British owners used to the 'Council Tax'