This is how Paco Fernandez, a producer of early peppers from El Ejido, summarizes what happened in many Almerian farms in this campaign; as Asaja Almeria detailed a few days ago, the market value of the product has skyrocketed more than 52% over the last season.
The president of Asaja Almeria confirmed that Almeria's agricultural sector had invoiced 3,639 million euro since September 2022, with increases of up to 108% in the value of pepper, 67% in cucumber prices, 58% in tomato prices, and up to 56% in eggplant prices.
"It's been a good campaign, in general. However, melon and watermelon prices fell because there was a contradiction between the supply we had and the markets' demand," stated Jose Martínez Portero, the president of Unica Group.
"We had an excess of kilos because the heat here advanced the production a lot, and there was a lack of consumption in Germany due to low temperatures," Martinez stated.
The weather and the presence of virosis in crops also impacted what was a "totally atypical agricultural campaign," stated the CEO of La Unión, Jesus Barranco. "The entire external and macroeconomic context received concentrated impacts in a very short space of time, which has been a very important challenge for companies and families."
"Right now, we are growing against the market," Barranco stated. "Consumption is falling, and we are growing by 6% in volume." It's striking that the Union has paid "22 million euro more to farmers, only in cucumber" this year while striving to "transfer all costs to a market" with many ups and downs.
Source: larazon.es