According to data announced yesterday by the Region of Murcia's Agriculture and Water Councillor, Antonio Cerdá, Murcian fruit and vegetable exports made a total of 3,500 million Euro last year, perfectly displaying the sector's resiliency to the recession; sales of irrigated crops increased by 14%, according to data from the Customs Service.
The growth in sales ranged from 8% in lettuce to 20% in melons. Apricots, flat peaches, table grapes, watermelon, lettuce, artichokes and broccoli saw the largest increases in production. Cerdá highlights the great contribution that the value of these exports made to the Spanish balance of payments.
Cerdá also emphasised that "for the sector's modernisation, agrifood research is currently the sector's main tool."
He also informed about the main lines of action for the regional agricultural sector in 2012. He stressed that the Region "has not wasted a single Euro from the funds that the EU granted to promote the modernisation and competitiveness of regional agriculture." In fact, CAP aid allowed 50,000 growers and livestock farmers from Murcia to receive 109.4 million Euro in direct aid.
38.3 million Euro of public spending (co-financed by the Regional Government, the Ministry of Agriculture and the European Union) were also allocated to 12,000 growers for rural development programmes. The Region receives a third of the funds that Spain gets for the development of Operational Programmes, with 50% of the investments financed by Fruit and Vegetables Producers Organisations and the European Union, "which shows the trust that is being put into the modernisation of these firms," concluded Cerdá.
Source: Laverdad