AVA-ASAJA accuses mass distribution to sink the price of watermelon on the field
AVA-ASAJA has denounced the “virulent business strategy” that are carrying out the supermarket chains, consisting of supply of watermelon “to Busted prices”, aiming not only to attract more customers using this fruit as a ruse, but also sink quotes watermelon on the field and reverse a trend that, for the first time in recent seasons, was tested positive for the farmer.
As explained by the Valencian organization, “this season watermelon was developing very positively to the farmer, after several consecutive years marked by truly ruinous results for producers”.
For AVA-ASAJA, a clear aggravation of these “reprehensible practices that are developing, with watermelon as the protagonist, the main supermarkets operating in Spain, is the fact that the relationship between supply and demand does not correspond at all with a dynamic Quotes downward, because the harvest this year is significantly lower than last year. Thus, both in the producing areas of Almeria and Murcia, due to climatic factors, such as Valencia, because of the gradual abandonment of the area devoted to this crop by the very low profitability has offered in recent years, production has declined, which explains favorable prices for farmers with whom started the current season started.
A clear example of malpractice which AVA-ASAJA attributed to large retailers to impact negatively on the evolution of prices of this product in the field is the “bidding war” in which these days have plunged the supermarket chains, with average discounts of 20 cents per kilo.
“The effects on the field of this tactic perfectly calculated by the giants of the food distribution have been disastrous for the field, denounces this association, so that if in recent weeks the kilo watermelon was paid to the producer between 35 and 40 cents, during the last dates the prices offered have fallen drastically to 20 cents per kilo, which is just the threshold where the cost of production is and, therefore, the boundary between profit margins and losses ” .
According regrets the president of AVA-ASAJA, Cristóbal Aguado, “are forcing back the machine to cause an artificial fall in prices in the country, because right now there are no objective market conditions to act in this manner and only from greed or the awkwardness of short-term gains can be explained it seeks to twist and sabotage the course of a campaign that could provide reasonable results for all members of the food chain. ”
Also, the president of AVA-ASAJA accuses mass distribution of repeating the same strategy used during the last citrus season “rains, it pours, because we can not forget that during the last season of citrus these same companies used the same strategy to dynamiting prices in the field as detected a situation of bonanza for farmers. At that time we denounced these practices to the authorities, but these gentlemen seem to care very little and still in their thirteen, regardless of the irreparable consequences that cause with their attitude in the agricultural sector. ”
In view of this situation, the president of AVA-ASAJA calls on the European Union’s approval of a law on the food chain to sanction Community level these abusive and unfair practices, “because you can not tolerate someone the power to arrogate ruining farmers with impunity. These attitudes are not typical of developed countries and, of course, should have no place in the XXI century “.
Source: AVA-ASAJA
