Spain: They warn that this year's fruit campaign will only cover production costs

After two years marked by a severe drought, the union predicts that this year's sweet fruit campaign will only cover production costs, both due to the hailstorms, which greatly affected the Plana de Lérida, and due to the lack of water still suffered by the areas of the Margalef, Riudecañas and Guiamets reservoirs in the Campo de Tarragona and Tierras del Ebro. In this sense, the union has managed to get the Department to commit to allocating 800 euros/hectare for fruit trees in the areas of the reservoirs without water for irrigation, and is asking for an increase in aid for irrigators of the Fluvià-Muga aquifer, given that they have also suffered restrictions, within the framework of a total of 70.8 million for the drought damage in 2024 to the entire agricultural sector. For pear producers it will be an even more negative campaign, as the union warned at the end of August in a statement. Drought, high temperatures and heat waves in 2023 affected the formation of the flower buds ...