Spain’s national Coordinator of Agricultural Organisations (COAG) has staged a series of ‘transparent’ fresh produce markets in an effort to demonstrate to consumers the differences between prices at origin and those paid in supermarkets.
Together with consumer associations UCE and CEACCU, COAG held the latest mock-market in Almería on 5 April with the group demonstrating the gap between returns and retail prices that it claimed were on average 450 per cent higher.
The Almería market follows a similar event in Madrid where the organisations demanded a new agricultural policy from the Spanish government that favoured both producers and the general interest through market regulation and price controls.
COAG claimed that growers and consumers were equally disadvantaged by the current system, which it argued imposed low prices at origin and high prices for the end consumer as a result of “exorbitant” commercial margins.
“The difference between prices at origin and those for end consumers reached 500 per cent in February 2009,” said COAG general secretary Miguel López citing recent data from the Index of Food Prices at Origin and Destination.
At the same time, the organisation said that the costs of production for the agricultural sector had risen overall by more than €2.6m in 2008.
