The area devoted to watermelon cultivation in Spain decreased by about 20% over the previous season, a decrease that has been offset by higher yields than usual in Almeria's greenhouses. However, the production has found an unusually low demand in European markets due to bad weather.
“Producers in Almeria's greenhouses decided to prolong other horticultural crops that currently have more commercial value, and the area in Seville and Cordoba has also fallen. The area devoted to this crop in Murcia and Valencia also decreased due to the fear of not having enough water. In Castilla-La Mancha the surface remained relatively steady, both due to the high rental costs of the land and the uncertainty of the drought,” stated Joaquin Hidalgo, the general director of Grupo AGF Fashion.
“This season's agronomic scenario is completely different from last year's scenario, in which the heat, followed by a month of persistent rainfall, affected fruit setting in watermelon crops. As a result, yields dropped at the beginning of the campaign, coinciding with a period of high demand throughout Europe driven by the good weather that led to skyrocketing prices. Last year we finished the campaign with 30% less production,” Joaquin Hidalgo stated.
“This year, production is unusually high. In fact, we are harvesting twice as much product as we usually collect. Meanwhile, demand is completely stagnant due to bad weather in the export destinations. As a result of these two factors, prices have fallen dramatically to levels more typical of July, when there usually is more supply. Even though Spaniards are the largest consumers of watermelon in Europe, producers in Spain plan their planting with exports in mind, so the volumes stored and to be collected in the fields are enormous,” he said.
The increased imports of watermelon from third countries have also contributed to the collapse of the Spanish product's prices. “There still are huge volumes of watermelon from Morocco, which has also had a large production despite having less surface planted due to drought issues. In addition, many distribution chains that suspected supply would be low and prices high, as last year, have expanded their watermelon import programs from Costa Rica, Panama, and Brazil. Thus, the market had large quantities of watermelon from these origins that entered Europe through Rotterdam and were present in the markets until a few days ago,” the CEO of Grupo AGF Fashion added.
“This has been a very strong blow to the sector in Almeria. I think it's going to be a summer with a lot of fruit in general. There's going to be a lot of melons, watermelons, and stone fruits. The positive thing is that low prices are a good incentive for consumption, but when there is so much supply it can also become apathetic,” Joaquin Hidalgo stated.
For more information:
Joaquín Hidalgo
Grupo AGF Fashion
T: +34 950 400 311
jhidalgo@grupoagf.es
www.sandiafashion.com