Portuguese exports of fresh produce to reach a thousand million Euro
The president of Portugal Fresh (association for fruits, vegetables and flowers promotion), Manuel Évora, underlined that exports must grow 12% between 2011 and 2012, going from 800 to 900 million Euro.
Manuel Évora mentioned that Africa and Europe are still the main destinations for exports when highlighting the raise of exports to Latin America, mainly Brazil, "despite still needing to eliminate border barriers".
As for the internal market "it presents a frightening consumption and price recession", more serious since the E. Coli crisis. In June last year, panic was set among European consumers after 50 people died in Germany due to an outbreak of E. Coli, leading German authorities to set an alert for Spanish cucumber lots and advising people not to consume cucumber, tomato and salads.
The suspicion proved to be unfounded, but doubts about the epidemic's origin turned consumers away from vegetables, causing high damages for farmers, above the 5 million Euro mark in the case of Portugal.
"Vegetable farmers had a big fall", he affirmed underlining that the production amounts weren't smaller and it reflected in the price drop.
"Prices for potato, carrot and lettuce are low by comparison to the production costs. Salad product also suffered a lot", he added.
Pear and apple producers are also being affected by the consequences of the consumption retraction in a year of "good production".
"We hope for better days", he revealed.
Source: Lusa