Changes in the Spanish Tropical Association's board of directors

The Spanish Tropical Fruit Association's new board of director's priorities and challenges include adequate infrastructure that allows Andalusian producers to have the necessary water resources to guarantee the future of tropical crops, institutional support, valuing the quality of the national product in the face of competition from third countries with more lax agricultural regulations, the fight for fair prices, and a value chain that does not continue to penalize the families that put the resources and effort to produce fruit with a high added value.

The new board begins its journey under the direction of the Veleño farmer José María López González.

"© AETI take on this responsibility with great enthusiasm, but also with the awareness that we have challenges ahead of us and that tropical agriculture can wait no longer. We cannot allow further delays in key issues if we want to continue to have the competitive advantage that comes from our experience as pioneers in tropical crops in the European Union. We need more institutional support. We need the necessary water infrastructure we've been promised to become a reality to guarantee the future of the thousands of families that depend on the tropical countryside in the Axarquía, the Coast of Granada -highly punished by the drought of recent years- and all of Andalusia," he stressed. "Recognizing the quality at the origin of the fruit grown here must be a priority. This means fighting for a fair price for growers, valuing their work, the effort made by the families that live on these crops, and that the value chain stops being the funnel it has become, penalizing growers, while others take the lion's share," he added.

© AET

Elena Ruiz Terrón is the vice-president of this organization. "I am very familiar with the struggle and effort involved in running a farm. That's why I want to give my all in this new stage. My priority is to be useful to my colleagues and fight for our products and our future," she added. "We are facing very tough regulations, which we are following to the letter, rising inputs, and many difficulties. We know that our fruit is synonymous with quality, that it has nothing to do with that which comes from other origins, with regulations that are not as demanding as the ones we comply with, and, therefore, with far fewer guarantees. Consumers must be aware of this, and we need to work on this. Having prices recognize this effort is a priority," she stressed.

The new Board of Directors also includes Domingo Medina as treasurer, Bianca Alves as secretary, and Juan Antonio Reyes Gutiérrez, Rubén Blanco Romero, Clara Báez Acosta, and Juan Maldonado.