Stan Fijnaut has been living in Greece for more than 22 years, and he has always worked as Export Manager for Hortiland. Hortiland was founded in the Netherlands in 1992, and its core activity is supplying hybrid seeds and plant nutrients to professional vegetable growers. According to Stan, the Greek production is small scale. Greek has about 860,000 production companies with an average size of about five hectares. Besides, 12.6 per cent of the working population is employed in the agrarian sector.
This is a lot compared to the Netherlands, where 1.2 per cent of the working population works in agriculture. “Not just growers are affected by the crisis. Suppliers of seeds, fertiliser and pesticides are also directly affected by the consequences of the crisis. The declining area and decreased amount of fertilisation and pesticides caused the turnover of these companies to decrease. One example of this is the use of fertiliser, which decreased by about 20 per cent over the past six years.”
Stan visiting China
Because of the crisis, fruit and vegetables are expensive in Greece according to Stan. “More than half the consumers belief domestic products are superior to import products. Yet the crisis forced people to be more aware of prices when shopping, because import products are sometimes cheaper than domestic products. Right now, major supermarket chains in Greece control more than half the retail market, and this is expected to continue growing. The growth of the large, modern shop chains also has consequences for Greek agriculture. These shop chains often have high requirements regarding volume, quality, traceability and reliable delivery. The archaic agriculture of Greece has trouble meeting these requirements, even though Greece has everything to develop an internationally successful agriculture and food sector.”
Stan, right, at the Agrotica Fair in Thessaloniki
During the financial crisis, Greece was much affected, and the country needed help from the other European member countries. In the past three years, Greece worked hard on reforms and cuts to meet the Troika’s requirements (EU, IMF and ECB). “Although progress is being made,the situation for the average tax payer in Greece continues to be difficult. Unemployment is still high, the debt of private individuals and companies to banks and the government is still extremely high, the tax burden is high and many talented young people leave the country hoping for a better future. It’s also difficult for business to continue functioning normally due to the very high taxes and lack of credit facilities. In the agricultural and horticultural sectors, the situation is comparable to that of general business. New investments are difficult, and besides, European agricultural subsidies are gradually being cut back, and the sector has to become viable on its own. These challenges bring unrest for the traditional agriculture and horticulture, which is partly based on subsidies and isn’t sufficiently modernised to face the new challenges of the future.”
The points on which the development of the Greek agricultural sector stagnates are mainly the government and the growers themselves. Greece has difficulty uniting its fractured agrarian sector, which consists of many small companies. These don’t have the capital to finance major investments, even though innovations are needed to keep up with modernising the agriculture and compete with global scaling up. Additionally, Greece lacks the know-how to realise this modernisation, and the older generation of growers often don’t dare to take risks and keep to their old growing habits.
“The government is trying to boost the sector again, and subsidises young growers and renewals of material, but effects aren’t perceptible on a large scale yet. They talk about innovation, branding and export a lot, but only few growers have actually seen any of this. The big change will have to come from growers themselves, not just from subsidies or government support. A better economic climate, new energy and motivation are needed to leave behind the current negative situation. The Greek agricultural and horticultural sectors have to become more extrovert, and the advantages (geographical position, climate, large part of the population working in agriculture, lower production costs compared to more northern countries) have to be utilised more.”
Fortunately here are some rays of hope and exceptions to the negative situation, and Stan has noticed these as well. “Although the prices of fresh produce were low in 2017 – except for olives, olive oil and some other products – the trend of new productions (herbs, super foods, pomegranates and oil-bearing crops) and production techniques could boost prices. Another positive development is that tourism has increased considerably in the past three years (25 million tourists in 2017), so that the domestic consumption of fresh produce increased in the April-September period.”
For more information:
Stan Fijnaut