Spanish growers have been experiencing difficulties getting sufficient seasonal workers from overseas before the start of the strawberry season later this month.
Growers’ leaders have failed in their efforts to secure the planned numbers from Romania and Ukraine and are turning to Morocco to make up the shortfall. Only 30 per cent of the hoped for number from Romania have been secured and so growers are expecting a further 2,000 Moroccans to make up the numbers to the much needed 14,000. Freshuelva president José Manuel Romero warned against dependence on the North African country for all the sector’s labour, however. “A dependency on one single country is not advantageous,” he said. “Especially as Morocco just has two years’ experience working with us on this seasonal labour system.”
Meanwhile, the crop is reported to be faring well with some 237,000 tonnes forecast this season: a similar volume to 2007-06 levels. The forecast, also from Freshuelva, is encouraging, especially given that acreage has decreased this year by 50ha to about 6,230ha.
However, raspberry acreage continues to rise and this season is calculated at 1,230ha, up some 2.5 per cent on the previous year, although slightly below expectation. Tonnage is forecast to reach 10,250t . “Acreage is lower than we had anticipated which in fact is a relief given the difficulty we would have had in marketing the crop if the area under production had increased dramatically,” said Romero.
Freshuelva has also released statistics on blackberry and blueberry production for the first time with the later forecast to reach 3.000t.
The organisation is looking forward to a “positive” season, Romero said especially given the lower acreage under strawberry production and measures by the regional executive to bring production in the area around the Doñana national park in the region under greater control.
