Falling strawberry prices worry French producers

Strawberries are finally appearing on the shelves this weekend, to the delight of consumers. But for producers, the late arrival of their fruits is not good news. With unpredictable weather in recent months and one of the rainiest springs since 2008, the strawberries took a while to turn red. Xavier Masse, president of the association of strawberry producers in France, points out in particular a “relatively cold and rainy month of May”. On France Bleu, he now highlights “an influx of production” in June thanks to the return of the sun and mild temperatures “for ten days”. But with this massive arrival of strawberries, producers fear a sharp drop in prices and competition from other fruits such as apricots, nectarines or peaches produced abroad, sold less expensively to consumers. “In France, we have increasingly heavy burdens on agricultural operations, particularly in terms of labor, so we risk falling below our production costs,” laments Jérôme Jury, an arborist at Saint-Prim in ...