The Andalusian strawberry sector, which is concentrated in the province of Huelva, has entered the final stretch of a very long, hard, and complicated campaign, marked by ups and downs in prices and by major production peaks that have, sometimes, been difficult for the markets to take on.
The president of the Association of Producers and Exporters of Strawberry from Huelva (Freshuelva), Alberto Garrocho, said that, at this point, the producers were selling their product at discount prices because "all the fruit being collected now is to be sold fresh and to the industry."
Regarding prices, he said that "they are already low compared to other moments of the campaign and that producers stopped harvesting because they are not being paid what the fruit is really worth."
Thus, businessmen are "obtaining orders at minimum prices, mainly for the industry, and they are crunching numbers every day, so that they can leave the business gradually, when it's not profitable anymore."
Garrocho insisted that it had been a long campaign because it had started precociously, in December, due to the high temperatures. He also said it had been a complicated campaign because they had had an overproduction in the first few weeks so prices declined by up to 50% when compared to 2015.
In the first three months of the year producers achieved normalizing crops, and sustaining prices and production. Then, in April, the entry into production of other countries saturated the markets and there was another decline in prices. Additionally, there was a decline in quality because of a lack of manpower.
Despite all this, Garrocho said that they expected the campaign would end with numbers that are similar to last year, when Huelva's strawberry sector, which accounts for 94% of national production, produced a total of 288,660 tons and achieved a 20.7% increase in turnover, i.e. 355 million Euro.
Source: agroinformacion.com