Strength truly shows when, after a number of setbacks, something is capable of coming back even stronger. This is the case of Almeria's horticulture, which just two years after one of its worst crises ever, caused by unfair accusations regarding the presence of the Escherichia coli bacteria (E. Coli), has had two consecutive harvests with plenty of records broken, whether in terms of kilos produced, prices at origin or number of hectares using organic control systems.
The case of cucumbers is particularly noteworthy, because by the end of the current campaign, the vegetable leads Almeria's production value growth ranking, with around 28% more than last year, followed by courgettes (23%), aubergines (17%) and peppers (15%).
What makes this even more meritorious is that the acreage for cucumber cultivation has barely grown by around 200 hectares compared to the 2011/2012 campaign, while tomatoes have grown by 1,234 hectares, peppers by 1,073, courgettes by 659 and watermelons by 735 hectares.
The kilos obtained have also remained stable, with a slight 0.9% increase, reaching 411,189 tonnes, which means that the increase in the value of the production is mostly due to the behaviour of prices.
During the 2012/2013 campaign, cucumbers have reached the second best price of the past six seasons, with 0.55 Euro per kilo, compared to the 0.44 obtained last year. The only time the price was higher was in the 2008/2009 season, when an average of 0.58 Euro per kilo was reached.
Source: Elalmeria.es