The seven MEPs from the Committee on Agriculture of the European Parliament visited the Guadex company located in Palma del Rio, an association of fruit and vegetable producers, to get to know a representative of the citrus sector. The City Council of Palma del Rio is immersed in an analysis of this economic fabric, looking for a more competitive and sustainable agriculture that ensures farmers' incomes and decent living conditions for workers by committing to generating added value in the food industry. In June, they will finish a document that asks the EU Committee on Agriculture to encourage cooperation between producers to improve competitiveness and to shield the sector from unnecessary intermediaries.
The president of the mission, MEP Czeslaw Adam Siekierski (Poland), said the CAP is one of the oldest tools of the EU and that "agriculture is very diverse and we need different solutions to meet its diverse realities." He then added that they had made the visit to get to know the problems that the sector had. Regarding the defense of the citrus sector undertaken by the City Council of Palma del Rio, Siekierski said that "there are different jurisdictions, some fall in Europe, others at the national level, and others at the regional one, and we will take the competence of the European Commission to Brussels."
Meanwhile, after the mayor met with the deputy director of the Agriculture Committee, Joost Korte, MEP Clara Aguilera said that the Committee on Agriculture still had to perform a technical visit to analyze the situation of citrus, especially regarding labor and the problem with the temporal workers.
In turn, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development of the Board, Ricardo Dominguez, said the CAP needed to be reviewed and that the rules of the producer organizations had to be updated. Dominguez said: "We are concerned about the situation of the citrus sector, we stress that the producer organizations are its greatest strength, we can not act individually, we must have measures to encourage them and we must have an agroindustrial plan."
The Deputy Minister highlighted the work performed by the Fruit and Vegetable Producing Organizations in managing product recall, which is preferably intended for free distribution, as a regulatory mechanism. He stressed the need of adjusting compensations for withdrawal to the current costs because they were completely obsolete and in many cases did not compensate farmers. He also said that the recurring market crises in recent years, which were caused by Russia's veto on agricultural imports, the competition from third countries, and other economic factors, had affected the fresh fruits and vegetables the most because of their perishability. Additionally, he said it was necessary to update these prices so that they cover production and transportation costs. Otherwise, he said, this mechanism to regulate market crises would be ineffective.
Mayor Jose Antonio Ruiz Almenara highlighted the great effort being carried out in Palma for the development of the agricultural and agroindustrial sectors. "We have a great product, our orange, and a lot of investment," he said. "We have a delocalization problem. We must concentrate our supply for the development of our territory, we have such a good product that they take it," he concluded.
Source: diariocordoba.com