Spain’s regional government of Valencia has pledged more than €2.1m to help citrus cooperative San José de Alcàsser to built nine new facilities to coincide with the next citrus campaign, as the group gradually recovers from a devastating 2009 fire.
Valencia’s regional minister of agriculture, Maritina Hernández, made the pledge during a visit to the construction site of cooperative’s new facilities, where she said the recovery of the group’s production was key to the economic development of the surrounding area.
The pledged funds will go towards to estimated €3.8m cost of constructing San José de Alcàsser’s new facilities, which will replace the buildings destroyed during a fire in January 2009, which included one of the group’s packhouses.
The cooperative’s re-built facilities, which will include a new packhouse and will feature technology designed to improve San José de Alcàsser’s environmental performance, is set to cover around 12,500m2.
San José de Alcàsser currently has approximately 3,300 grower-members, who produce on average between 16,000-18,000 tonnes of fruit a year, of which 80 per cent is accounted for by clementines and 20 per cent are oranges.
The group exports its products across Europe to countries including Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Russia, as well as to the US and Canada.
