Spain: Final income drops 11% due to crisis and E.Coli
That is what was said last Wednesday by the Councillor of Agriculture, Antonio Cerdá, when presenting the "Analysis for the agricultural campaign in the Murcia region 2010-2011", made by the Cajamar Foundation and reflecting that the campaign was "negative" regarding the previous one.
According to the document, last campaign was acceptable for apricot, peach, table grape and mandarine; it was "bad" for pepper, celery, artichoke, watermelon, plum and grapefruit; and "very bad" for melon, tomato, broccoli, lemon and orange.
Even so, it acknowledges that the German, French and English markets were the main consumers for horticultural productions from Murcia.
This information also reflects that the sector has difficulties to access credit, despite the fact that during this period it found "small relief" to finance their credit policies through funds from the Official Credit Institute (OCI).
This document also shows that competition from third party countries has smaller production costs and it's less rigorous with the fulfilling of working and environment conditions, that can also be the cause of the crisis suffered by the agricultural sector.
Cerdá, accompanied by the president of Cajamar-Caja Rural, Antonio Pérez Lao, claimed a "bigger compromise" of Europe with the agricultural sector and the establishment of measures that "compensate the effort with a fair and regulated price that derives from what is paid by consumers for a certain product."
He demanded a bigger coordination between the productive and industrial sectors so "both are benefited," as it is revealed in the report, during the 2010/2011 campaign the production costs were raised but the prices for the main vegetables, fruits and citrus the prices were reduced.
The councillor assured that the investigation "is a fundamental aspect to win new markets" and reminded that cultivations like the table grape, peach and apricot, in these scientific projects, had the best results.
Source: Murcia