La Unió de Llauradors has called on cooperatives and businesses to offer a fair price to persimmon producers this season, given the significant decline in harvest due to the different hailstorms in recent months and the effects of pests in the crop.
The decrease in production will be very important this season and there will be fewer marketable kilos of persimmon and many fields unharvested. At the beginning of September, the sector thought the production would be 20% lower than in a normal campaign. Now, the sector knows the decrease will undoubtedly be much higher. Faced with this situation, La Unió urges commercial operators to transfer to the distribution chains the need to pay prices that are acceptable to producers.
In this sense, the organization will not tolerate any kind of excuses, as it is a crop that, to date, has no competition in the markets from third countries, as is the case with citrus. "We do not have competition from persimmons from other countries in the market. Therefore, our production must prevail and obtain a fair price," stated Eduard Esparza, the head of persimmon at La Unió. "We will immediately report any cases of fraudulent practices or payments below production costs that endanger the evolution of the campaign that we detect to the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA)," Esparza added.
According to La Unió, in addition to the losses caused by the weather, producers must also face an exorbitant increase in production costs to curb pests, as the authorized products do not have the desired efficiency and predators for biological control are too expensive. In addition, producers also have to deal with the rise in electricity rates, the increase in the price of fertilizers, containers, and packaging, among other inputs.
“Producers must be remunerated for the quality fruit they produce, otherwise we may find ourselves with a massive abandonment of persimmon fields. We can't have low prices this season. Persimmon prices should be as high as they were a few years ago,” they stated.
Eduard Esparza demands the different Administrations pay more attention and are more sensitive towards the cultivation of persimmon. "We demand solutions to the problems caused by the weather and pests. Aid should be granted to keep our farms standing and avoid the economic and environmental disaster that the abandoned fields would have in our producing areas."
For more information:
La Unió de Llauradors 
launio@launio.org
www.launio.org