Russia’s sweeping ban on all fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts imported from the EU could cause the European market to collapse, according to Manel Simon, director of Catalan producer association Afrucat and an influential player in Europe’s fruit business.
“The Russian decision to ban European imports could provoke a crisis without precedent,” he stated yesterday in response to the move. “The Russian market is a very important market and it could cause the rest of the market to collapse. Urgent action is needed.”
Spain is one of the countries that stands to lose the most as a result of Russia’s decision to ban the vast majority of food imports from EU countries, Norway, Australia, Canada and the US.
That’s certainly the view of Fepex, the country’s fresh produce export association, which published a statement on Friday outlining the potential impact of the blockade and hinting at potential immediate problems for Europe’s entire fresh produce export trade.
It said Moscow’s publication of a list of banned products – including all fresh fruit and vegetables from the EU – on Thursday had already caused “the collapse of prices in EU markets for a wide range of products, whose share price fell 50 per cent [in some cases]”.
It added: “Spain is one of the [EU] states that will suffer the biggest economic impact of Russia’s actions, since fruit and vegetables are a major percentage of their agricultural production and export, and [the products’] perishable nature makes them particularly vulnerable to sanctions.
Spain’s direct exports of fruit and vegetables to Russia amounted to 230,729 tonnes in 2013, but the real figure is much higher when taking into account the large proportion of fresh produce that is re-exported by other EU countries, including France, the Netherlands and Poland.
Fepex also urged the Spanish Minister of Agriculture and the European Commission to take immediate and effective crisis management that will maintain the balance of the markets and prevent the collapse of prices measures.
As a whole, the EU exported 2.4m tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables worth a total of €1.91bn to Russia in 2013.
The leading fruits and vegetables sold to the country were apples (790,000 tonnes), pears (201,000 tonnes), fresh tomatoes (230,000 tonnes) and cabbage (91,200 tonnes).
