Green Fruits showcased its latest green initiatives during a visit by Ximo Puig, president of the government of Valencia, to the group’s Coopego facility last week.
The cooperative group, created in 2018 by the union of Coopego, Novacitrus and Cooperativa Citrícola La Safor, has implemented a Zero Waste project to provide guaranteed residue-free fruit and vegetables.
It is also a part of the GO Innoland project, a common land management initiative made up of several Valencian cooperatives, Anecoop, Cajamar and the Polytechnic University of Valencia, among others, which seeks to improve competitiveness among regional producers through better planning and a focus on environmentally respectful production processes that generate added value.
“The Green Fruits partners share a commitment to environmentally friendly agriculture and the implementation of measures to alleviate the agrarian crisis, and Coopego is a good example of this,” said Coopego president Pepe Pastor.
“We need to establish models of joint management and farming practices for larger farms as this is the key to reorganising production and focusing it on the needs of markets and consumers.”
Specialising in citrus, Green Fruits brings together some 1,200 growers that produce an average annual volume around 65,000 tonnes of citrus.
Green Fruits president, Francisco Gilabert, said: “In our opinion, we have shown that we know how to adapt to the times and take on new challenges.
“It is essential that we improve competitiveness through greater concentration and diversification of our offer, in addition to the joint and optimised management of infrastructure and production.”
Regarding the current citrus campaign, Green Fruits’ director, Jaime Torres, noted that in spite of the overall fall in production, marketed volumes had remained similar to last year to date, with Clementine prices rising as the season progressed and a favourable outlook for oranges.
