The regional secretary of UPA-UCE, Ignacio Huertas, required solutions to prevent the tobacco, rice and tomato sectors from disappearing as they have become unprofitable but are still strategic for the community, as a large number of families make their living from them and the associated processing industry.
The organization has sent out a press release in which it reports about the meeting they had on Wednesday with the General Director of Agricultural Productions and Markets from the Ministry of Agriculture, Carlos Cabana, to address the crops' situation in face of the implementation of the new CAP.
"The market situation is not good enough to ensure the sectors' survival," stated Huertas, who, as an example, cited the decline in the cultivated area of tomatoes, which used to be grown in an average area of 23,000 hectares in the region and has fallen to 14,000 hectares last season.
In Huertas' view, if the Ministry doesn't bet on these crops in the new CAP, thousands of jobs will be lost in the region.
Carlos Cabanas informed them of the Ministry's intention of supporting the production of tomato and rice via the new CAP, but the Ministry hasn't issued a budget yet nor explained what the basic pay of these or other crops will be.
Huertas believes it's necessary that the Ministry clarify this matter soon and that these crops' production costs be taken into account upon creating the budget that will be allocated to aid producers.
"If the budget isn't big enough, the aids will be completely useless because farmers won't be able to continue producing," said the regional secretary of UPA -UCE, who has insisted that "we left the meeting with the same uncertainty with which we entered it."
Source: HOY