The Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-ASAJA) demanded that the State Agrarian Insurance Agency (ENESA), an agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Spanish Association of Combined Agrarian Insurance Insurance Agencies (Agroseguro) introduce substantial changes to the criteria in force for the purchase of persimmon insurance in order to bring them into line with those applied to other crops to end a longstanding discriminatory situation that seriously damages persimmon producers.
One of the issues posed by AVA-ASAJA to the above mentioned entities, is the need to extend indemnity insurance to the entire plot when the damages detected by some type of loss exceeds 70% of the harvest, as is contemplated in other contracting modalities that benefit other crops, such as of citrus or fruit trees.
The producers demand this change because, in the case of persimmon, after a certain level of damage, the market loses interest in acquiring the percentage of fruit that could be saved from the climatic accident, which means producers are unable to sell a significant part of their crops and don't receive any compensation for these losses from the insurance.
"It is necessary to put an end urgently to this absurd and irritating discrimination for persimmon producers," said the president of AVA-ASAJA, Cristobal Aguado, adding that the ENESA continued to turn a deaf ear to our requests. It is outrageous, it makes no sense that other crops, such as citrus or fruit trees, include a series of high compensatory clauses when the plots have been affected in very devastating proportions and that persimmon crops do not receive the same treatment."
In this sense, the head of this agrarian organization stated that "the producers of persimmon bet very decisively on the contracting of agricultural insurance, to the point that most of the area devoted to this crop is insured. Thus, their contribution to the stability of the insurance system is very remarkable and yet they are getting in return a discriminatory treatment."
Another important requests from AVA-ASAJA to ENESA and Agroseguro is to extend the terms of persimmon insurance contracting, as the deadline is set on February 20 and producers can't fully project the future of the harvest at that time of the year. This agrarian organization understands that the period to contract the persimmon insurance should be extended in order to adapt it to the cycle of the crop and the needs of the farmers.