The European Commission has announced plans to adopt extraordinary measures to help fruit producers in Europe hit by this summer's reported market crisis.
As a result, producers will receive the same level of support as they did during the E coli crisis in 2011, with the qualifying criteria also permitting those operators not belonging to a producer organisation to claim financial compensation for fruit withdrawn from the market.
Paolo De Castro, the former Italian agriculture minister who now chairs the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, told Italiafruit News that 'teamwork' with Italy's current rural affairs minister Maurizio Martina had helped convince the EC of 'the gravity of the situation' in which many European producers – Italian stonefruit growers in particular – had found themselves this summer.
As a result, the Commission looks set to allow a greater volume of fruit to qualify for financially backed withdrawal and De Castro appeared to back a similar move in support of producers adversely affected by the Russian import ban.
