Farmers from the southwest of France this week paid a visit to Rungis wholesale market in Paris to denounce the wholesalers' preference for Spanish produce, cultivated at a fraction of the cost of French produce, according to a report in Le Nouvel Observateur.
'Some wholesalers are not playing by the rules and are favouring Spanish peaches to increase their margins,' declared Laurent Ducurtil, a Perpignan-based producer and member of the FNSEA, France's largest farming union. 'We are already forced to sell for less than the cost price, and if this continues, we will no longer be able to produce in France.'
Before heading on to the ministry of agriculture, around 20 producers wandered the vegetable halls of Rungis to try to persuade the wholesalers to favour French production.
The producers equally questioned the ability of Spanish producers to guarantee the safety of their fruits and vegetables.
However, some wholesalers insisted that they were blameless and that the real reason for the price gap between French and Spanish produce was the difference in labour costs between the two countries.
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