“Almeria has been farmland since the time of the Umayyad caliphate—Campo de Dalías is derived from the Arabic word daliyah, meaning “vine”. But the geography of the region has historically been unkind to farmers. The towering peaks of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Gádor mountain ranges to the north block rain clouds from reaching the coastal plains. Water is scarce (rain falls on average fewer than 50 days a year), and the Levanter wind tears across the plains, sometimes at over 100kph (62mph).

The plastic sea developed in response to these unfavourable conditions, beginning as a handful of simple shelters to shield local crops against the elements. In the 1960s pioneering farmers realised that plants hidden under plastic grew faster and more successfully, and began constructing greenhouses.

Since then, cultivation in the region has boomed. Europe’s vegetable garden now yields 3.5m tonnes of produce all year round, enough to feed half a billion people. Beneath the tarpaulins, bell peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, courgettes, aubergines and cucumbers flourish.

The region’s micro-climate has also benefited: while the effects of global warming have caused temperatures to soar in the rest of the country, Almeria has been on a cooling trend of 0.3°C per decade since the 1990s. This is thanks to the vast surface created by the greenhouses’ plastic roofs, which reflects sunlight back into the atmosphere.”

From The Economist.