A series of storms with heavy rains in Granada, Spain, has recently caused rivers to overflow, flooding a large part of the municipality of Huétor Tájar, where green asparagus is grown. Although the damage in this area is significant, the asparagus growing and marketing sector explains that the area accounts for only a small percentage of the total acreage in Granada, the province with the largest production of this crop in Spain.
"It is true that the floods have caused damage in Huétor Tájar, but there has been too much panic about the percentage of asparagus affected in Granada. In our case, around 2% of all our plots have been affected," says Francisco Delgado, manager of the cooperative Los Gallombares.
"In fact, the remaining 98% of our acreage will actually benefit from the rains after several years of drought. We are therefore expecting these rains to allow us to produce larger asparagus, as most of our acreage is rainfed. Therefore, we are expecting our production to grow by as much as 20%," says Delgado. "While last season we reached 7,900,000 kilos of asparagus, this year we could come close to 8,500,000 kilos."
The season is already underway with the earliest harvests, although volumes are limited for now. "If the rains stop in a few days and temperatures rise, we expect to have a significant volume in Granada from early March onwards," says the manager of Los Gallombares.
"For the time being, while we wait for Granada's production to increase, we continue to sell asparagus from Mexico, although due to issues with the weather in this country, the supply is smaller and quite expensive, which is why we are limiting our imports to the essential to keep our year-round service running." Los Gallombares exports around 75% of its production to European countries.
For more information:
Francisco Delgado
Los Gallombares S.C.A.
Ctra. de Priego, s/n
Ventorros de San José Loja. Granada, Spain.
Tel.: +34 958315195
[email protected]
www.losgallombares.es
