Marinaladi Co-op threatened by predatory investors, sale looms.

The emblematic lands of El Umoso, home to the agricultural cooperatives that support Marinaleda's labor utopia, have found themselves in a judicial conflict with uncertain consequences. In the worst case scenario, these 1,200 hectares could come into the possession of a speculative investment fund, the so-called predatory funds, if the Andalusian junta, now in the hands of the Popular Right Party, decides to sell them at market prices in the face of capital pressure on Andalusian agriculture. This is what the cooperativists fear, as they told Público.

"There is a clear danger that the Andalusian junta will set a land sale price that is only accessible to speculative investment funds,"''stated from the cooperative commission.

The junta has so far limited itself to saying the matter is in court. However, that is not the only possibility. The story could unfold in a different way. This is the direction being pushed by both the municipality of Marinaleda and the joint management of cooperatives, with the support of credit institutions of the ethical banking sector, which intend to buy the land at a reasonable price from the Andalusian Junta, depending on the political will.

Sergio Gomez Reyes

Sergio Gomez Reyes, mayor of Marinaleda (Izquierda Unida-Podemos), told Público that the municipality will use its right to ensure that the land remains useful to the region. "We want to use the land to create jobs. But they insist on selling it.'''It seems that public property is a hindrance to them. It has to be at a fair price, symbolic, to solve the problem of the region's working class." Gomez Reyes is ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the Andalusian junta and is fully committed to resolving the situation through dialog. "Everything depends on political will. Public assets can be transferred from one administration to another. They have an absolute majority and legislation," Gomez Reyes added.

We will have to wait for the resolution of the issue that the cooperatives filed against the Andalusian Junta's decision to stop the administrative process of land acquisition by workers. The law, approved during the PSOE years in 2011, regulated access to land ownership. In 2015, the cooperatives began the process''property acquisition, but disagreements over the price demanded by the Junta - then-mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo wanted to use the land - ruined the deal. Later, already with the People's Law Party in the Andalusian government, disagreements in the interpretation of legal rules regarding the number of cooperative members led to the failure of this path. And the case turned to the courts. Now it will all depend on the decisions that the various parties - the Andalusian Junta, the municipality and the cooperatives - will make after the Superior Court of Justice has settled. It could decide in favor of the Junta - which, judging from legal sources, seems likely - and this would open up a scenario in which the Andalusian government would be forced to make decisions: the cooperativists believe that as a direct consequence of this''s solution will be eviction from the land and its subsequent sale. Then the municipality will be the preferred point of application of the 2021 decree, according to their interpretation, already when the People's Right Party is in power. In that case it will depend on price and political will.

"With the cooperatives, we request a price that allows us to continue the objectives of the economic' built over thirty years'a model that does not seek to maximize business profits but to create the maximum number of high quality jobs for Marinaleda and its region,' positioned the cooperative commission.

El Umoso and the economy of Marinaleda

El Umoso is the foundation of the economy of Marinaleda and over the years has managed to create a growing agricultural sector of the industry. The philosophy that is the basis of its work is not economic gain but social purpose. This is how the cooperative commission expresses it in a document: "Unlike any business project aimed at creating profits for its owners, the cooperative project of Marinaleda is always guided by the stimulation of the development of productive activities that allow''to create the maximum number of jobs. This reality has made El Umoso an economic engine for the municipality and a fundamental tool to prevent emigration and the low standard of living of the city's residents. "

At the end of 2022, there were 2,579 people with a median age of 42 living in Marinaleda. At that time there were 126 unemployed people (60 women, 66 men), according to the Institute of Statistics and Cartography of Andalusia. A large part of the jobs in the city are provided by the cooperatives of El Umoso. According to their own data, in good years they can provide around 700 jobs, and the average number of jobs recently has been around 550 vacancies per year, which are significant figures for this locality''item.

The cooperative movement and capital

"The cooperative model of Marinaleda is an example of a successful model of territorial development in sparsely populated Andalusian rural areas. The Andalusian government should support this type of projects and create a legislative framework for them. However, today we are facing the exact opposite situation: in recent years we have adopted regulations that are detrimental to these projects," the cooperatives say. "Cooperatives support a model of community ownership, community planning and cooperative governance. The cooperatives want the land to have no owner, which can be achieved by keeping it under public ownership (whether by the Andalusian Junta or the''year. For this company, which advises its clients on investment opportunities, "the agri-food sector is a strategic sector and plays a fundamental role in the Spanish and Portuguese economies". "Its appeal lies in the fact that it is a real and simple asset based on land and water," they point out, and its price, although rising, is less than in other areas, such as California. In fact, the prices for buying and selling farmland, as quoted by the Institute for National Statistics, are the highest they have been in decades.

'The loss of El Umoso would be a failure of the rural development policy of the Andalusian administration, responsible for the fact that the Andalusian countryside has''economic development projects that enable people to live in their villages. Marinaleda's cooperative model creates jobs and wealth through economic and financial sustainability, based on resource allocation, self-governance and economic democracy. The loss of El Umoso would mean the loss of this successful model,' the union analyzes the cooperatives' leadership.