Joan Mir warns at the Valencian Business Forum that if prices continue to rise, the resulting shortages could lead to widespread famine
Anecoop’s CEO, Joan Mir, has issued a stark warning about rising fertiliser prices. Speaking at this week’s Valencian Business Forum, he said that if price increases continue, farmers will use less fertiliser and, as a result, will have smaller harvests and smaller fruit.
“There is an increase in costs that we are all absorbing, but there will come a point when it will be very difficult to sustain,” Mir said, adding that this would eventually have a knock-on impact on demand.
“We are not in a moment where consumption is growing, and this could lead us to raise prices and lower consumption,” he continued.
Mir also warned that a continuation of the price increases could influence farmers’ planting decisions, further threatening future harvests.
“Globally, if fertilisers continue to become more expensive, there could be widespread famine, because there are poorer countries that will not be able to afford them,” Mir said.
Despite the gloomy outlook, Mir said he remained optimistic about the sector’s capacity to adapt, highlighting the fact that Anecoop had been created to export products to markets that had later disappeared, such as the USSR and Czechoslovakia.
“Those were our main markets. Those countries disappeared, and we turned the bad into a good thing, establishing subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia… And we rebuilt ourselves,” he explained.
“Crises must be managed; they all cause a lot of suffering, but if you don’t let the crisis overwhelm you, you can overcome it,” Mir concluded.
