In a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, the entity Unión de Uniones defended the need to put in motion a second plan for the conversion of sweet fruit plantations in order to help professional growers in their adaptation to the fruit market with new varieties.
From left to right: Ignació Atance, Maria José Hernández, Omar Olivella (Associació Tècnics ADVs Lleida), Roger, Josep Cabré, Valentín Almansa, José Maria Cobos, Luis Javier Navarro (Ejecutiva Unión de Uniones) and Damià Seguí (head of the fruit department at Unió de Llauradors).
For the organization, after two consecutive years of price crises without any aid for the modernization of fruit agriculture, especially for Catalan fruit, it has become economically impractical for fruit plantations to continue reconverting to adapt to the market's needs and thus ensure the viability of professional sweet fruit growing.
The Ministry welcomed the proposal, but warned of the difficulty to enforce it due to budget shortages. Unión de Uniones has estimated the necessary contribution from the Ministry to convert 12,000 hectares of sweet fruit plantations at about 42 million Euro; an average of 7,000 Euro/hectare. This amount represents only 0.082% of the 2016 budget of the Ministry of Agriculture. The organization therefore considered the request feasible and will continue to defend it.
At the meeting, Unión de Uniones also made a request for taxation to be adapted to compensate for the loss of income suffered by sweet fruit producers as a result of the price crisis and the damage caused by the weather during the 2015 campaign.
Unión de Uniones also stressed the need to be able to continue using alternative methods to chemical control, such as pheromones, and that, due to changes in the registration rules, they do not currently have authorization for their application in Spain, despite being sustainable control methods with a low environmental impact. In this sense, the organization welcomes the Ministry's commitment to review each case for the granting of exceptional authorizations for these products, as well as for others necessary to control pests such as Drosophilla suzukii and pear psyla.
The representatives of the organization met yesterday to discuss these issues with Valentín Almansa, General Director of Health of the Agricultural Production; José María Cobos, of the General Department of Plant and Forest Health and Hygiene; José María Hernández, of the General Department of Fruits and Vegetables, Olive Oil and Viticulture, and Ignacio Atance, of the General Department of Analysis, Forecasting and Coordination.
More information:
Josep Cabré
Unión de Uniones
Tel.: +34 661967375