The treaty with South Africa drops early Valencian mandarins by 40%

The Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-Asaja) denounced before the European institutions, in Brussels, "the devastating commercial and phytosanitary impact that the EU agreement with South Africa is causing for the citrus industry of the Valencian Community." According to a report prepared by the agricultural organization based on official data from the Conselleria and the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as the South African Citrus Growers' Association (CGA), since 2016, the year of the signing of the said treaty, the production of Valencian early clementines and satsumas has plummeted by 40%, falling from 361,226 to 211,718 tons, mainly due to the overlap in the initial period of the citrus campaign with South Africa's late mandarins, whose exports to the European market have more than tripled in the last decade, increasing from 53,869 to 180,140 tons. Furthermore, South Africa planted from 2012 to 2017, when the agreement was forged, more than ten million late mandarin ...