WALK THIS LAND

In the last century, Ibiza’s agrarian landscape has undergone profound transformation, yet pockets of traditional farming endure, resisting the tide of modernization. These farms, often family-owned and passed down through generations, offer a window into a bygone era, where simplicity and sustainability were guiding principles.

Traditional farmers, weathered by sun and toil, have always possessed an innate understanding of the island’s ecosystem, cultivating crops in harmony with nature’s rhythms. From terraced hillsides lined with olive trees to verdant valleys carpeted with citrus orchards, every
inch of arable land is a testament to their ongoing stewardship.

‘I grew up here in the finca at Ca Na Bet. It was a working farm my whole life. I was an only child and I would walk to school in the mornings then walk back home to help on the farm in the afternoons. There was always so much to do – ploughing, planting, harvesting, weaving. Preparing produce to store for the winter. My father always worked with a donkey and cart and he taught me to do the same. When I left school at 14, I worked full time on the farm and learnt everything. We lived a very simple, traditional life. It was hard work but it was rewarding and each day had a sense of purpose. Once a year, sometimes less, my parents would go to Vila – Ibiza Town – with the horse and cart. They would take chickens, eggs and fresh produce from the farm to sell, and with the money they might buy a new shirt or a suit for my father. The trip to Vila was always an important event and took a lot of advance planning!

On the farm we kept goats, pigs and chickens. In the fields below the house, we grew crops – tomatoes, maize, peppers and potatoes. We grew so many potatoes that sometimes they were exported by truck to England! All of this was possible in those years because Ibiza had so much fresh water. It has all gone now, but in my youth my friends and I used to swim in the river at the bottom of the farm. We loved to fish for the eels that would swim up from the sea at Santa Eulalia. It’s hard to imagine it now. We used a traditional mule-drawn waterwheel – a noria – to draw water up from underground. The water would be seven or eight metres deep in the well and it would feed a series of acequias – water channels – that irrigated the crops. I remember one strip of land at the bottom of the farm that was so marshy that sometimes rice was grown there.

Ibiza was very tranquil back then. There were no cars and we knew very little of life away from the north of the island. When tourism arrived on the island in the early 1960s, a lot of people from the Spanish mainland came to Ibiza to find jobs. There was a huge amount of construction going on and I went to work in Santa Eulalia for a few years as a labourer. It was there that I learnt to play the accordion and I have played it ever since. Everyone in the north knows me as Juan del Acordeón. I think tourism has been good for the island in many ways, but the problem is always with excess. We need to retain a respect for and understanding of the island and the land itself. I’ve seen Ibiza change more in my 80 years than I could ever have imagined. Life is easier now, on the surface, but in many ways, it is much more complicated than it used to be. I just feel grateful to still walk the same fields each day that I have since my childhood.’