Two weeks on from the Spanish transport strike and growers and exporters are still counting the cost to their business.
The regions that appear to have been hardest hit are Extremadura in the west and Murcia in the south-east as the strike coincided with peak harvest time for stone-fruit in Extremadura and melons in Murcia.
So far growers groups in the westerly region have calculated direct losses as a result of the strike at €7.5 million, while in Murcia producers associations are still doing the sums. On top of these losses are those incurred by the slump in prices this past week as some markets experience oversupply and declining values. “Some producers have lost not just one week, but two or three even,” said Antonio Chavero, president of Extremadura producers’ association Afruex. “A lot of fruit could not be harvested because we didn’t have anything to pack it into, or could not get it to coldstores, while some was lost as it stayed longer in store than it should. We lost the week we couldn’t pack, last week as supermarkets had to make programmes to get their fruit elsewhere, and we will have to see if we can keep our clients after all this.”
Now grower-exporter association Fepex is calling on the regional and national governments of Spain to act and compensate the sector.
