‘Visible from space’: why Spain has the world’s biggest concentration of greenhouses

Europe’s vegetable garden is in Andalusia, southern Spain. It is so vast that it can even be seen from space: if you open Google Maps and look west of Almería, you will see a white patch that looks like a glacier, but as you zoom in, you realise it is the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world. More than 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) of land are covered in plastic, a geometric labyrinth five times the size of Manhattan, where 3.5m tons of vegetables are produced every year – from tomatoes to cucumbers, peppers to courgettes, aubergines to melons – enough to feed half a billion people and generate a turnover of more than 3bn euros.
“We call it the ‘sea of plastic’; it is the largest monument on the planet dedicated to food production,” says Guadalupe López Díaz, project director of the Fundación Tecnova experimental centre. “But it is also a place devoted to innovation and development, elements that guarantee companies control and, above all, vegetables 12 months a year.”
“Today, a sustainable technological revolution is under way,” López Díaz continues, “a transformation focused on producing healthy, high-quality food using less water and energy, while remaining resilient to the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of our farmers has already transformed this land several times.”
This economic miracle began in 1963, in an arid and sunny peninsula called Campo de Dalías – where the region then recorded some of the lowest economic growth rates in all of Europe and extremely difficult conditions for horticulture – when farmers stubbornly began to protect crops from the wind with rudimentary plastic greenhouses. They soon realised that greenhouses could also diffuse light, retain heat and preserve humidity, and thus control the microclimate. This – together with drip irrigation, natural pest control and genetic research – made it possible to increase the number of harvests, even allowing them in winter. The sea of plastic thus became a true intensive agriculture district, where, alongside the greenhouses, there are nurseries, chemical laboratories, vocational schools and research centres (such as Fundación Tecnova, where more efficient plastics and climate-adapted crops are studied), as well as packaging companies and distribution cooperatives. The products are exported everywhere, especially to northern European countries.
In Balanegra, along the western coast of Campo de Dalías, technician Patricia Baldan Cruz is chatting with her colleague María José Araos Fuentes outside a large desalination plant run by the public company Acuamed. “The sea of plastic,” Patricia says, “has become a global benchmark for efficient, safe and responsible food production.
“Today, as the planet faces the dual challenge of feeding a growing population and protecting natural resources, Almería stands as a living laboratory of solutions. It produces fresh, healthy food all year-round with strict environmental standards, advanced technology and minimal water consumption. Our desalination plant, for example, is one of the largest in Europe and has been operational since 2015: every day it draws seawater and desalinises more than 120 cubic kilometres of water, the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools per hour.”
What will be the future of the sea of plastic? A possible answer can be found within the walls of the Escuela Agraria de Vícar, founded in 1972 on the outskirts of the village of La Gangosa. Here, 480 students from various parts of Andalusia study the latest agricultural techniques and prepare to enter a working world that “in the next 20 years,” says the school’s director Francisco Valverde, “will lead to agriculture powered by applied AI, IoT and advanced sensors, strengthened by agrivoltaic systems and bio-composites, using resilient crop varieties and a mindset oriented toward the circular economy.
“We teach our students both theory and practice, cultivating and marketing products on a two-hectare plot next to the school. We aim to pass on new technologies that in the future will not only ensure sustainability and food security, but also strengthen Almería’s role as a global benchmark for innovative growth combined with social development.”
The problems generated by such intensive agriculture cannot be denied. The main issues are linked to human exploitation. In the sea of plastic, the workforce consists of more than 70,000 foreign workers, mostly from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa. While it is true that many live in decent and dignified conditions, often in clean towns with full services, many are frequently underpaid, and some live in precarious conditions, in rural houses next to or among the greenhouses.
Moreover, although a significant percentage of the plastic used is properly recycled (85% according to some sources), critical situations still exist involving illegal dumping and abandoned waste. Sustainable development must become a concrete objective and cannot be reconciled with human exploitation.