"Radish price too low; time to solve the problems"

Sales of radishes are reasonable, according to Piet Zwinkels, "but all in all the income is too thin. The radish cultivation costs 15 cents/kg per week. Radish has now been in the field for 9 weeks and we receive from 90 cents to one Euro in the fresh market and that is just not sufficient. We cannot make a living from this. It is totally different from last year when we had early frost. The cost of heating we do not have now, but we have to save up for the period of frost, which is still to come." the radish grower continues. "The quality of the radish is reasonable as we had a lot of light during the dark months."

"The demand is disappointing and I attribute this to the economic crisis" says the Westlander, who also grows radish in Egypt and Portugal. As another reason Piet mentions a lack of cooperation between Dutch growers. "There is only 70 HA of radish in the Netherlands. There are foreign companies who have this area on their own. It is ridiculous that we fight with each other about the last ten cents. Therefore we should get together and market the Dutch product together. Then we are in a position to supply the foreign retailers under the Dutch hallmark."