Lettuce producers in Murcia have taken drastic measures to try and increase prices paid for their crops.

Some 27 different firms in the region have destroyed up to 40 per cent of their production of iceberg to try and improve profitability in the sector.

The destruction started last week for a two-week period, and was agreed at a crisis meeting on February 11 in Lorca, among representatives of the companies. The producers hope that through their action, some 10,000 tonnes can be taken out of the export market to the UK and Germany.

Producers were receiving €0.006 (£0.0045) a head of lettuce when it costs €0.15 a head to produce the crop, prompting them to take action. They have now decided to form a committee with representatives from the regional producers’ and exporters’ associations Fecoam and Proexport, as well as the companies involved in the sector, to establish a protocol to try and prevent this kind of crisis in the future.

“Growers have been producing below cost for several months,” one of the delegates at the meeting said. “In part this is because of excess production that has saturated the market causing a drop in prices, but also the weather has not been on our side and the fine weather in recent weeks has brought the crop on.”

Another delegate said the time had perhaps come for more research to be undertaken in Murcia to enable growers to look at producing more value-added crops.

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