Asaja has demanded the application of the motion approved in the Committee for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Spanish Senate, which urges the Government to ask the European Union to adopt measures to support Andalusia's citrus sector after the agreement with South Africa.
The motion, approved on 25 January, agrees with the requirements proposed by Asaja, since the agreement with South Africa was announced, which "represents an economic risk" for the Spanish citrus sector, in which Andalusia is the second most important region, with more than 600,000 hectares of crops.
The organization recalled in a statement that the agreement with the African country entails "flooding the markets with a fruit that is not produced under the same quality, phytosanitary and social responsibility standards applied in Europe, and specifically in Spain, which is why the agreement in itself is considered extremely unfair for Spanish producers."
Furthermore, the entry of fruit that has not undergone the same phytosanitary treatments and controls represents a real danger of the spread of diseases and pests, which would be absolutely disastrous for agriculture in the EU.
Asaja stressed that "such motions are useless if the measures set out in the document are not truly applied, so we therefore expect the Government to take the threat of the entry of pests seriously and be firm in the defence of our interests."
The agrarian organization reminded that, for some months, the Balearic Islands have been suffering the impact of the damage caused by the lethal Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterium capable of killing crops such as olives or vines, and that it could cause a real disaster for our agriculture if it was to arrive to the Peninsula."
Source: EFE
