Hortyfruta is mounting a campaign to defend Spanish tomatoes and counter potentially damaging claims made in a TV report.
The Spanish grower group moved to support the sector, following an attack made by Dutch environmental organisation Milieudefensie broadcasted by the Netwerk channel at the NVRC network in the Netherlands.
The programme discredits Spanish tomatoes in favour of Dutch produce, claiming that “Spanish tomatoes contain 3.2 times more poison than Dutch tomatoes” and highlighting the “risk that Spanish produce poses to children”.
Hortyfruta considers these types of declarations to be “incorrect, prejudiced, responsible for creating panic among the public and based on a free and erroneous interpretation of government information” and is reported to be examining legal measures for liability.
The organisation intends to set the record straight with an action plan, which includes contacting the Dutch Embassy in Spain to demand that action be taken.
Hortyfruta will challenge Milieudefensie and the television network responsible for broadcasting the programme to reveal their sources and to inform them of the efforts being made in integrated control on more than 20,000 hectares of land in Andalusia. The results of thousands of residue analysis carried out in the fields, as well as reports published by laboratories in Stuttgart and Düsseldorf in Germany praising Andalusian farmers’ involvement of integrated control will also be presented to them.
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