When focusing specifically on the Russian market, the Region of Valencia has lost up to 600 million Euro over the last three fruit and vegetable campaigns. The losses in Spain as a whole have amounted to 2,000 million Euro, to which we must add 40,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetable surpluses, according to agrarian organizations and the Ministry of Agriculture. This surplus is the amount that the Russian market used to demand before the veto, and which now contributes to saturating the markets.
Therefore, the president of the Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-Asaja), Cristóbal Aguado, denounced the impassibility, disdain and absolute disregard that the European Union is showing towards the agricultural sector, and the fruit and vegetable sector in particular, by maintaining a confrontation with Russia due to strictly political reasons which have nothing to do with the agricultural sector, and which has already caused 2 billion Euro losses to Spain's fruit and vegetable producers after just three years in force."
The losses in the Region of Valencia account for up to 30% of the total, with the last horticultural campaign being the worst in decades, mainly due to the Russian veto. This has affected Valencia's agriculture directly since horticulturists have not been able to sell their products due to a lack of demand. They have also been adversely affected indirectly, because "the production that was going to Russia, an emerging market, is no longer going there, and this has consequently collapsed the European market, causing the fall of prices, since there are no markets for the surplus," stated the representative of the agricultural association.
Another cause is the massive import of onions and potatoes, which results in the new potatoes grown in Valencia being left to rot, with no foreign market to absorb them. For this reason, Valencian producers are calling for a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that includes a law governing the food chain, which in Spain is already in force, and secondly, aid to Mediterranean crops, as they are "insufficient." For example, citrus fruits only receive 5% of European aid, which is not enough. "Huge concerns have also been generated among summer fruit growers who also lack support from the CAP," said the president of the Valencian agrarian organization.
In 2014, exports to Russia from the Region of Valencia accounted for 14% of the total, around 67 million kilos, which generated an economic income of €73 million, 15% of the total. Sources from the sector warned that the problem is not only that exports stopped, but that other markets became saturated and prices dropped.
Source: lasprovincias.es
