The Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Castellon has opened criminal investigation proceedings following a complaint from LA UNIÓ de Llauradors. This has been filed due to the planting of citrus varieties from other countries (in this case, the Sigal), allegedly before undergoing the mandatory analyses and sanitation requirements.
LA UNIÓ argued in its complaint that the citrus sector is adopting practices that could allegedly violate the provisions of Law 43/2002 on plant health of 20 November. Such practices can cause a clear damage to producers, who must subsequently pay large amounts of royalties once the exploitation license of these varieties has been granted and they are forced to regularise their plantations. But above all, LA UNIÓ believes that it is a serious threat to the health of our citrus farms, because we are dealing with varieties that have been planted without any sanitary guarantees. Consequently, they can potentially spread pests or diseases, such as the Huanglongbing (HLB), or Citrus Black Spot, to other plantations.
The head of the citrus sector at LA UNIÓ de Llauradors, Carles Peris, said that "we intend to find out which companies or people are responsible for introducing plant material in Spain without going through the mandatory plant health procedures, because they are putting our plantations at risk and becoming unfair competitors to other companies which comply with the current legislation on plant health."