According to the recently presented analysis of the 2019/2020 fruit and vegetable campaign prepared by Cajamar, the prices at origin of most of the products of Almeria's fruit and vegetable campaign registered a favorable evolution. The beginning of the campaign was characterized by lower prices than in the previous season. However, in the second part of the campaign, corresponding to the first half of 2020, there was a general increase in prices due to the decrease in the supply of lettuce, melon, and watermelon, and the increase in demand that occurred during the months of confinement because of COVID-19.
According to the analysis of the fruit and vegetable campaign, the prices of pepper, cucumber, zucchini, melon, watermelon, and lettuce improved while the average price of tomato, eggplant, and green beans decreased.
The province has a total of 32,368 hectares of greenhouses, i.e. 1% more than last year. The area dedicated to the production of fruit and vegetables, taking into account the different growth cycles, increased by 3.1% over the previous season and stood at 60,699 hectares.
The production of eggplant (+ 10.5%), pepper (+ 7.3%), and cucumber (+ 4.8%) increased while the production of tomato (-9.6%) and beans (-34.5%) decreased.
The fruit and vegetable production volume decreased slightly by -1.2% and amounted to 3,721,118 tons, 3,488,510 tons of which (-1%) correspond to crops under plastic. Eggplant and pepper recorded the best performance, with increases of 13% and 7.7%, respectively, while the performance of tomato and watermelon fell by -10.3% in both cases, melon by -5.9 %, and lettuce by -5%.
The value of the production increased by 5.2%, totaling 2,319.5 million euro, 2,291.6 million of which come from intensive horticulture. Watermelon experienced the biggest increase in income (+ 32.3%), followed by cucumber (+ 15.3%), melon (+ 13.2%) and pepper (+ 9.1%), while Aubergine (-13.1%) and tomato (-10.8%) decreased their turnover.
The value of exports has grown by 21.3% in five years
According to the Cajamar report, the export volume has increased by 11.7% in the last five years.
Almeria exported 2,723,195 tons of vegetables, a very similar volume to the previous year (+ 0.4%) for a value of 2,866 million euro (+ 6.8%). Income from fruit and vegetable exports has grown by 21.3% in the last five years. The exported value has grown especially in September, November, and January, as well as in April and May, coinciding with the confinement due to COVID-19.
Source: agroinformacion.com