Fortunes are improving for Spanish strawberries as the weather picks up and growers’ leaders work with the authorities to secure financial lifelines.
José Manuel Romero, president of the producer-exporters’ association Freshuelva, said: “The weather is accompanying the strawberry season now and after delays of 30-40 days, the situation is quite good compared to what we hoped for.
“We cannot make up what has already been lost and it is true that the soft-fruit sector in Huelva has suffered great losses so far this year - €12 million (£11m) in losses of raspberries and €25m in strawberries - and that cannot be recovered. However, we are pretty optimistic because the weather has improved and production is rising, and prices have not crashed either. We cannot always talk about pessimism and constantly present a negative picture, because that is not now the reality.”
Nevertheless, Freshuelva estimates that so far this year, raspberry output is barely at half of normal levels and strawberries even less.
Romero has been engaged in meetings with regional authorities in Andalusia in south-western Spain. A moratorium on social security payments has been agreed, as well as terms for delaying insurance policy payments until cash from sales starts to flow through to producers.
These agreements follow Romero’s meetings with Martín Soler, agriculture councillor at the regional executive, and Rafael Martín Ballesteros, director general of market planning and analysis.
