With the season in full swing, Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de Andalucía has pointed to the challenging situation that citrus growers are facing due to uncontrolled imports from third countries, which are flooding the market and causing prices to plummet. Such a scenario is ruinous for producers, who are already struggling with the rise in production costs and the reduction of their harvests due to drought and high temperatures.
The current citrus campaign started with fairly reasonable prices, given the forecast of a more limited production. However, once past the halfway point of the season, and despite confirmation that the volume of oranges is rather scarce, prices have still plunged.
There are multiple factors behind this situation, as denounced by the president of the Citrus Working Group of Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de Andalucía, Francisco J. Bernal. He says that "the entry through Andalusian ports of oranges and mandarins from third countries, mainly Morocco and Egypt, has saturated the market and caused prices to plummet."
The sector representative claims that over this past year alone, "an extra 40 million kilos of oranges from third countries" have entered the European market, according to data from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. Those productions "are competing with ours," despite arriving "with poor quality and without food safety guarantees." In fact, many of these productions raise health alerts, since non-EU producers "are not required to comply with the same strict agricultural, environmental and labor regulations as European producers," says Bernal. Therefore, he insists, "we demand mirror clauses to be able to compete on equal terms."
In this context, the war and the blockade of the Suez Canal are also having a severe impact. This situation is preventing the arrival of non-EU oranges to Asia, so this production "is being diverted to Europe, causing fiercer competition and collapsing the market."
Faced with this situation, the sector also criticizes the stance of the juice industry, which is sourcing large quantities of non-EU oranges and is reviewing the conditions of its contracts with Andalusian cooperatives, despite price agreements made at the beginning of the campaign. And if the price of oranges for juicing is low, the price of oranges for fresh consumption is dragged down, too.
The situation is also affecting mandarins. Indeed, second-season varieties "are impossible to sell, as there is no commercial demand. Some farms will likely be forced to leave their productions lying on the ground," says Bernal.
Source: agroalimentarias-andalucia.coop