Leading representatives of the French, Italian and Spanish peach and nectarine producers have called on the European Commission to take urgent measures to combat the collapse in fruit and vegetable prices following recent E.coli outbreak in Germany and France.
Following a meeting held yesterday (4 July) in Paris to analyse the “serious situation” in European markets, the groups said in a statement that the outbreak had affected fresh produce consumption across Europe, causing a “serious crisis” in prices.
The producer representatives, which included Spanish national federation Fepex, said that consumption across Europe was still at far below normal levels as a result of the ‘cucumber crisis’, but claimed the European Commission had yet to adopt a single measure to manage the situation.
The groups also repeated denouncements from the sector of the Commission’s current compensation package for affected producers as “inadequate and insufficient”, saying that the measures would only give growers €0.03 per kilo when the average cost of production totals €0.70.
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