At the national wholesale market in Agen, in southwestern France, producers have felt the knock-on effect of the E.coli outbreak in Europe, including a drop in cucumber prices and an increase in wasted produce.
One producer, Pascal Raynal told Ladepeche.fr that he had been forced to discard 400-500kg of cucumbers since the last harvest, a total of around 6,000-7,000 cucumbers.
Another producer Gilles Bordes said that the negative publicity had caused all salad vegetables to suffer, including tomatoes.
He also said that the €210m earmarked to assist European producers was a drop in the ocean and would benefit only producer organisations as opposed to independents.
Gilles Vignaud, president of French interprofessional organisation Interfel, said that the EU would also have to assist the entire sector and finance a promotional campaign to restore consumer confidence.
He added that countries that had protected their markets with total bans on imported vegetables from Europe should immediately reverse those measures, which Mr Vignaud described as 'unfair and inappropriate'.
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