Books, toys, movies and video games for sale at this bartering
market in Barcelona, Spain. / Xavier Sule BARCELONA - With two
small children and no income for the past two years, Antonio
Delgado, 44, says things were so bad he had considered taking
his life. Then a few months ago, Delgado found out about a group
that rents small parcels of farmland cheap near his town of La
Rinconada in southern Spain. Now he' s bringing home boxes of
tomatoes, onions, peppers, lettuce, zucchinis and pumpkins. But
he is not selling them. Delgado and others are bartering, or
trading, their way through a recession that has lasted years and
left more than a quarter of the workforce unemployed. Tens of
thousands of households have no wage earners, but they have
skills and time on their hands to do work that can be traded for
things they need but have no money to buy. "I had no clue about
agriculture," Delgado said. "But this has changed my life."
Banker Julio Gisbert, author of the book and blog Living Without
a Job, says Spaniar