Cooperative producer organisations from France, Italy and Spain have called upon the European Parliament's Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development to extend existing support to producer organisations within the fresh produce sector beyond 2013.
Representatives from the three countries' fresh fruit and vegetable industries, which together represent around 76 per cent of fruit production and 64 per cent of vegetable production within the EU, submitted a document of proposals asking for the Common Market Organisation (CMO) to be maintained after 2013, when the current agreement on agricultural subsidies comes to an end.
'We have agreed that producers and their cooperatives need to be strengthened i terms of their size and competitiveness in order to cope with a market where demand is increasingly concentrated,' said Davide Vernocchi, fresh produce sector president of Italian farming organisation Fedagri-Confcooperative.
The group has reportedly asked for the CMO for fruits and vegetables to be maintained even beyond 2013, with a specific budget to fund aid that focuses on producer organisations and operational programmes.
In addition, it has called for the adjustment and improvement of crisis prevention and management tools within the CMO ahead of the 2010 camapaign, as well as the definition of a 'horizontal' system of support which is able to guarantee returns to growers during major crises.
'We also discussed the retention of marketing standards in the EU, improved export conditions and opposition to the liberalisation of imports, the need for community measures aimed at avoiding commercial abuses and making retailers more responsible, with the aim of guaranteeing the production costs paid by producers,' added Gianluca Balzani of Legacoop Agroalimentare.
The organisations signing the document were: Fedagri-Confcooperative, Legacoop-agroalimentare and AGCI-Agrital from Italy, Spanish organisation Cooperativas Agroalimentarias and Felcoop, the French federation of fresh produce cooperatives.
