Spain: Alicante tomato growers suffer due to Morrocan produce

ASAJA Alicante & the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture requested the Spanish-Moroccan tomato committee to convene. ASAJA wants the EC to pe r form rigorous checks to ensure the Moroccan producers follow the rules on the quota established in the free trade agreement that was signed on the first of October.

The prices of Spanish tomatoes drop ped significanlty and are below production costs right now. This is an effect of the cheap import tomatoes coming from Morocco into the European Union. In Perpignan, France, 100 kilos of tomatoes costs 39 euro. This causes not only big losses for the Spanish growers, but also for neighboring countries.

According to Eladio Aniorte, president of ASAJA Alicante, the price crisis is a result of an abuse of power within the foodchain. "The only companies that make profit are the big retailers", he says. "The producers receive a really small amount of the price that the consumers pay for their produce. The losses in the province of Alicante have already reached more than 16 million euro. The value of the annual production is currently at 23 million euro. Five years ago, it was more than 39 million euro."