The citrus sector strike in Spain scheduled for yesterday and today (Friday) has been postponed indefinitely by producer organisations.

Representatives from co-operatives met with marketers and officials from the Valencia regional executive to thrash out a compromise minimum price for oranges and clementines of E0.40 and E0.55 a kilo respectively.

But, according to growers’ association Ava-Asaja, based in the Valencia region, this is still not enough.

“Our association believes this is insufficient for our members as it would mean producers would be left with just E0.10 a kilo for oranges and E0.15 a kilo for clementines,” said a spokesman.

“It is progress, but we still want to see a better price. That is why the strike has been postponed to see if prices improve before Christmas.

“What we want is E0.15 a kilo for oranges and E0.20 for clems. If prices do not get better, the strike action will be reconsidered in January.”

Meanwhile, this week on UK wholesale markets there was strong demand for Spanish satsumas as Ava-Asaja reported that lack of water in the growing season has affected sizes and fruit coming forward for the fresh market.

“Because satsumas mature early in the season, and this year there was a lack of water in the summer and early autumn, fruit has been affected, especially in terms of size,” said the spokesman.

“A lot of the volume did not have sizes sufficiently large to be marketed and so some 60-65 per cent of satsumas in the Valencia region have had to go to industry.”

The situation is likely to improve after the Christmas period and into the new year when hybrid varieties come on stream.

“Because they are later in the season, they have benefited from rainfall in the autumn in the Valencia region and so will be more competitive on the fresh market,” said the spokesman.

The latest estimates for the overall Spanish citrus crop are some 6 million tonnes. This is in line with the 10-year average.

Orange quality is good overall, but there have also been reports of some problems with sizing because of lack of water

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