The Spanish stonefruit campaign is in crisis as prices plummet and seasons overlap.

Spanish grower groups say a spectacular increase in production this season compared to last year’s frost-blighted campaign, mean that production has peaches and nectarines has doubled in the Valencia region, which is forecasting a crop of some 71,000 tonnes. Meanwhile crops in Murcia and Andalucia are also coming on stream at the same time leading to a fall in prices at the farm gate of 41 per cent for peaches and 42 per cent for nectarines.

“With prices like these, producers is seeing returns come in below the bar of the cost of production,” said Joan Brusca, general secretary of producers’ trade union La Unió. “This season will be the fifth in a row that growers have lost income. The most serious outcome is that orchards are being abandoned in many growing areas and producers are just looking for a date when they can leave the sector for good. If steps are not taken urgently, to help grower incomes an encourage transparency in the marketplace, we will end up with a fruit-growing sector with no fruit-growers.”

The national director at the farm ministry Francisco Mombiela met with representatives from the sector earlier this week and ruled out any extraordinary measures to help the sector but proposed more controls on the quality of fruit reaching the marketplace. He also highlighted the importance of promotion to incentivise consumption, but stopped short of advocating voluntary non-subsidised fruit withdrawal from the marketplace to boost values.

Meanwhile, there was better news for apricot growers this week as they reached a price agreement with processors so alleviating some of the downward pressure on fruit values for the fresh market.

Topics