A leading Spanish fresh produce association has warned that vegetable growers could abandon production of a number of products as a result of low prices, which it says are failing to cover harvesting and transportation costs.
The Valencian Farmers' Association (Ava-Asaja) said that current prices being offered by retailers and wholesalers for peppers, melons and aubergines were too low to meet collection costs, meaning that in some cases growers may elect to leave crops to rot.
Although Ava-Asaja said that a fall in consumption was partly to blame for the situation, it said the majority of the blame lay with pressure from grocery retailers to lower prices, which had flooded wholesale markets with goods, causing the collapse of prices.
In a statement, Ava-Asaja president Cristóbal Aguado said: 'We started the campaign at the end of May with prices that were below the threshold of profitability, but now prices are so low that we can't deliver products to the market.'
Mr Aguado said that Valencia’s vegetable sector was suffering the affects of the 'price war' that is taking place between rival supermarket operators.
Ava-Asaja's warning follows news in recent days that melon producers in the neighbouring Spanish region of Murcia have reportedly destroyed up to 30 per cent of this year's harvest in an attempt to buoy plummeting prices for the fruit.
According to national Spanish farmers' association COAG, the drastic measure has been taken as a result of 'the collapse' of prices paid to melon growers at the point of origin.
