OK, when you start your farming life you may have ideas of going organic and have lovely dreams of creating a farming paradise. Those dreams last about as long as the growing season and your next dream will be of killing everything that grows out the ground (or lurking around the place) that is not your crop. However, without a carnet fitosanitarius you will be doomed to grass cutting forever more.

Data are from summer 2016 and the information relates to processes specific to Catalunya. Similar processes will exist for the other Spanish autonomous regions. All "foreign" words below are in Catala, so use Google translate for the correct wording for the language used in your area.

From late 2016 onwards and E.U wide, in order to use agricultural chemicals in professional quantities (i.e. > 1 litre), you need a carnet fitosantitarius. This basically means you need a herbicide licence. In Spain, the logic is that if you cannot buy herbicide (or other chemicals) then therefore you cannot use herbicide (or other chemicals), which means if you try to buy any phytosantitary product without a carnet, you will be refused. The actual criminal offence is to use herbicide (or other chemicals) without a licence and the fines range from a few hundred euros to "eye watering" depending on the level of infraction committed.

In order to attain even a "basic" licence you need to go on a course, do some tests, attend an awayday and take and pass a final exam. The course and the tests can be done on-line, but the awayday and final exam are held at schools of agriculture and require attendance.

The pre-requistes for taking a course are 1) you will need to speak, read and write one of the official Spanish languages (in my case Catala) and 2) you will need to have a certificate of empadronament in order to actually get your carnet, even if you have passed the exam.

You register for a course at your local department of agriculture website, physically pay some money at the school you are attending and you will receive in the post a course book in the language you have specified (Castellano, Catala, Euskera, Galec) along with various other bits of paper. Please note that the courses are heavily oversubscribed so you need to "get in early" for each course run otherwise you could be waiting years. You will need to study the book carefully (it's about 317 pages) and covers everything from types of herbicide and herbicide equipment, health and safety and types of agriculture. The on-line tests relate directly to the book as does the final exam.

There are 3 on-line tests and they are timed and you need to pass them all prior to the exam. The awayday consists mostly of looking at and discussing various parts of herbicide equipment from clothing, types of spraying equipment and nossles used. The exam is a formal exam, held in a hall with invidulators and consists of about 100 multiple choice questions. Note: marks are deducted for wrong answers as well as added for correct answers, so you need to know your stuff.

A couple of weeks after the exam, you will receive an email saying whether you have passed or failed. If you have passed you will either be sent the carnet or required to produce a certificate of empadronament prior to receiving your carnet (some DARP areas don't ask, some do, but if you have a foreign name, then expect the demand). When your carnet is sent out, you will be registered with R.O.P.O. and be required to resit the course every few years.

Once you have your carnet, you can buy phytosanitary products in professional quantities. You need to take your Carnet, NIE, residence card or passport with you as they are requirements although not every outlet asks for extra I.D.

Total duration from start to finish is about 6 months and the cost is of the order of 30 euros or so (excluding petrol, wi-fi etc)

Herbicide Equipment

Once you have a licence then obviously you will need equipment with which to use your phytosanitary product. Note, anything over 100L or that is powered requires registration. If you buy the equipment new or old from a registered Spanish supplier, then your equipment will have been checked and added to the R.O.M.A. database. If you are buying second hand from a private seller you will probably need to register the equipment purchased with R.O.M.A. This presumes that the equipment has a valid inspection licence. If it doesn't have a current licence you will need to have the equipment tested by an official test centre (usually a Unio Pagesos office) and it must pass those tests. Use of unlicenced equipment will result in large fines. If you think you can get away without a licence remember that behind every bush is Spain is a squad of Agents Rurals or Forestales who will take great pleasure in nailing your ass to the nearest tree and emptying your bank account.

The cost of the inspection is around 70 euros and must be carried out every few years. What they are looking for (apart from leaks) is filters on every inflow and outflow line and good nossle flows. A big yellow sticker will be slapped onto your equipment, therefore protect it so you can point to it when the law shows up.

You can now blast liquid death across the Spanish countryside.

copyright Neil Tragham 2019 - 2025