AVA-ASAJA demands a strategic plan against agricultural losses in Valencia
The Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-ASAJA) demands a strategic plan in the short, medium and long term in support of the Valencian countryside – aimed at all administrations: both the new government teams invested in the municipalities of the Valencian Community, as to the Generalitat Valenciana and the central government that is finally formed – in order to reverse the critical situation that farmers are going through and that in the last 2018/2019 academic year has accumulated record losses of 439 million euros.
According to a technical study by AVA-ASAJA, the structural problems of production and market and, to a lesser extent, climatic adversities, have thrown red numbers in practically all crops and livestock huts. The balance of the citrus campaign is especially bleeding, with 305 million economic losses, which is considered the worst, in terms of profitability, of the last decades. In the agricultural section, the negative impact of the persimmon seasons (42 million losses), stone fruit trees (32 million), olive grove (26 million) or vineyard (20 million) should also be highlighted. The total losses caused in agricultural productions amount to 432 million.
As for the Valencian farmers, the dramatic profitability crisis that they have been dragging in recent times has aggravated this last year with losses close to 7.4 million euros. The cabins of sheep-goats, cattle and cuniculture have resulted in 3.8 million losses, 1.9 million and 390,000 euros respectively. Nor have Valencian beekeepers been saved from the debacle after suffering losses of 1.3 million.
The president of AVA-ASAJA, Cristóbal Aguado, demands “an immediate and forceful change in the direction of agricultural policies in order to guarantee the survival of the farmer, in the face of absolutely devastating and catastrophic results that, far from being something exceptional, add up to a tendency of extreme gravity that is causing an aging never seen of the rural population and the abandonment of fields ”. For this reason, and precisely at a time when the new municipal and regional governments have just started up, and in which the state executive is also negotiating, AVA-ASAJA urges them “to pass from words to deeds and apply a true crash plan. ”
In this way, the association will send a letter to the Valencian town councils to demand that they approve motions in which they are urged, first, to transfer a series of measures to the Generalitat Valenciana and different central government ministries, and on the other hand , to approve other initiatives themselves within the scope of their own local competences. These motions vindicate the president of the Consell, Ximo Puig, a more determined and ambitious implication towards the collective through a 20% increase in the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture in the strictly agrarian lines, while requesting the Minister Mireia Mollà an immediate application of the Structures Law, an impulse of the IVIA to gain efficiency and a clear and rigorous plant health policy against pests, among other priorities.
The proposals addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture focus on a more powerful interlocution in Brussels, the defense of Mediterranean agriculture in trade agreements with third countries, the streamlining of export protocols to new markets, a more flexible regulation in the framework of the producer organizations, improvements in the law of the food chain to reorganize the bargaining power, legislation that stops the damage of wildlife and a reduction in bureaucratic procedures.
Within the central government, AVA-ASAJA also proposes initiatives to other ministries, such as the Interior Ministry: more resources to combat the scourge of robberies in the countryside, or the Treasury: tax advantages such as the zero module in the IRPF statement corresponding to 2019 in crops and livestock that have suffered losses, zero-interest credits or the elimination of inheritance and donations tax to favor the generational relief.
AVA-ASAJA also considers in the content of the motion a set of measures to be applied by the consistories themselves, such as the exemption of taxes related to agricultural activity such as the Rustic IBI, the intervention to create beats together with the associations of Hunters with which to control the damage caused by wildlife, the conservation of roads and rural roads or greater vigilance in terms in order to stop theft.
Estimate of losses of Valencian farmers 2018-2019 campaign:
| Crop | Economic losses |
| Agriculture | |
| Cítrics | 305.000.000 |
| Vegetables | 1.700.000 |
| Vineyard | 20.100.000 |
| Almond | 3.000.000 |
| khaki | 42.000.000 |
| Fruit | 32.000.000 |
| Cereals | 2.300.000 |
| Oil | 26.000.000 |
| Total agriculture | 432.100.000 |
| cattle raising | |
| Sheep-Goat | 3.800.000 |
| conivulture | 390.000 |
| beekeeping | 1.300.000 |
| bovine | 1.900.000 |
| Total cattle raising | 7.390.000 |
| Total | 439.490.000 |
