Francisco Barba Garcia is an entrepreneur from Cadiz, who has been producing berries for four campaigns and has exported them for seven seasons. He is the owner of BC Energias, a company that invoiced around 14 million euro in 2016 by marketing the soft fruits it produces in Palos de la Frontera and Cartaya.
The company grows much of its strawberry production in the nearly 9 hectares it has at the Fressani farm, which is located next to the road that connects the town of Palos de la Frontera and Mazagon. The company grows the following varieties: Fortuna (70%), Primoris (25%), Rociera (3%), and Flavia (2%). The last two are still tryouts. Of the total strawberry area, about four hectares are cultivated using a hydroponic system. Meanwhile, in Cartaya, the company has about 11 hectares devoted to the production of raspberries and blueberries.
Francisco Barba said they had divided their production after having "searched for different microclimates in each zone to achieve having a product on the market as long as possible. Our goal is to supply berries to our customers for at least nine months of the year."
Virtually all of the soft fruit produced on these farms, and marketed under the 'Don frutero' brand, is distributed throughout Europe (Germany, Holland, France, Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and Austria). The company, however, has also shipped its product to other more distant destinations, like the United Arab Emirates, and it still sends small shipments to Hong Kong.
According to Francisco Barba, "this campaign will be decisive for the future of the sector because we obtained very good results with blueberries in the last three years, both in volume and in demand. These circumstances have led to a certain optimism among producers, but at this stage of the campaign we have to recognize that we have produced very few kilos, perhaps because the production comes with a little delay."
As a result, he said, "the biggest doubt that the farmers from Huelva have is if they should change their strawberries for blueberries. Some producers will decide to definitively bet on blueberries based on the yields obtained by the end of June, when the campaign ends, while others might choose to remove only a few acres of strawberries to put in more blueberries and some raspberry."
Regarding the strawberry campaign, Barba said that "we were all expecting a good year because we planted fewer hectares (about 5,400 hectares) so there will be fewer strawberries in the markets. However, I think we are having a bad year regarding prices because they don't correspond to the volume of strawberries that the sector is moving."
Source: agrodiariohuelva.es