"France: "Domestic strawberries better quality than Spanish imports"
The strawberries are produced above ground, in a substrate of coconut fibres. Harvesting is easier, a picker collects about 200kg a day. The strawberries are clean, unsoiled and therefore unaffected by disease. They do not suffer from predators either as they are in covered greenhouses.
The main advantage of this local production is that it supplies local commerce, rather than relying on imports. The fruit is picked when sweet and ripe, and delivered the next day.
Gérard Pobeda specialises in tasty strawberries (Cléry and gariguettes). From March to June he harvests 30-40 tons and employs about 15 people. ''I'm banking on quality by producing fruit with good flavour which we only pick when ripe, unlike Spanish imports. Obviously they're not the same price, but the quality is completely different!''
To spread out his production further than greenhouse and tunnel farming, he has begun field production this year, but will wait and see as ''there are many predators and picking is not as easy''.