According to the Union of Farmers and Livestock Unions (Unión de Uniones), almond imports from the United States are unjustifiably gaining more and more ground, damaging local Spanish productions.
The Unión de Uniones stressed that the trade balance of the product "continues to show a trend of increasing imports from the US. According to DataComex, in the last semester of this year 2023, Spain imported 47,000 tons of almonds in grain worth more than 173 million euro, which means the average import price stood at €3.68/kg."
"This is 80% of all of our country's almond imports, which are estimated at around 60,000 tons in the first half of this year 2023," the Unión stated. "Spain is the second largest producer of almonds so it's striking that there's almost a 15,000-ton-almond-imports gap in the exports/imports balance by volume."
"On the other hand, the Ministry calculates that, with the agreement with China, Spain could export about 50,000 tons of almonds to this country by 2025 and about 90,000 tons later. However, according to the Union de Uniones, this agreement leaves traditional producers in the ditch and will convert Spain into a platform to circulate American almonds to China."
"The organization emphasized that the low prices, the intentional or unintentional 121,000-ton harvest forecast, and the notable imports from California reveal that this is the strategy of the marketing companies; a strategy that maintains (or leads to the general decrease) of the product's price in the different auctions."
"Almond marketers continue to import huge quantities of almonds from the United States and stop betting on the local product, which has very good quality, ignoring the specific weight of this sector in the social and economic fabric in large areas of the territory with no other agronomic alternative."
In this context, the average prices stand below €3/kg, which, according to the Unión de Uniones, are not high enough to cover the continuously rising production costs, especially in traditional cultivation areas.
For more information:
Unión de Uniones
https://uniondeuniones.org