Spanish strawberry growers in the southern province of Huelva are hopeful that they will experience a strong final third of their campaign, with recent good weather provided some optimism after much of the season’s crop was devastated by heavy rains.
Rafael Domínguez from soft fruit growers’ association Freshuelva told Fruitnet that berry producers are hopeful of having a stronger end to the campaign after rains and flooding during late December and early January destroyed as much as 30 per cent of the crop.
Mr Domínguez said that although damage to strawberries varied according to region, with growers closest to the Portugal border said to have been spared the worst of the weather, the overall harvest for the season is expected to fall by between 30-40 per cent from the forecast 245,000 tonnes.
Although Huelva has experienced more hours of sunshine in recent days, Freshuelva’s president said having “favourable weather in the last third of the campaign would determine whether the sector would be able to recover any strawberry volumes”.
Despite the difficulties, Mr Domínguez said that the association, together with Spanish export agency Icex, would be arranging tastings in major supermarkets to promote this year’s strawberry and raspberry crop in the UK.
Freshuelva has also begun a separate promotional campaign in France, which will focus on highlighting the qualities of Huelva-produced strawberries to retailers, wholesalers and importers in the country.
Mr Domínguez said that Huelva was expected to produce 6,385ha of strawberries this year, a 2 per cent fall from 2009, as well as 910ha of raspberries (down 11.6 per cent), 660ha of blueberries (a rise of 13.4 per cent) and 60ha of blackberries (a drop of 17.8 per cent).
Some 20 per cent of the province’s soft fruit crop in sold in the Spanish domestic market, with the remaining 80 per cent exported primarily to Germany and France, followed by the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic.
