Cucumber Crisis Causes 10% Drop in Exports in June
August 26th, 2011
Spanish exports of fruits and vegetables fell 10% in value in June to 589 million euros, due to the consequences of the cucumber crisis, according to the Spanish Federation of Producers and Exporters of Fruits and Vegetables (Fepex), who lamented that the crisis had “ruined” the good performance of foreign sales in the first half of the year.
The strongest decline in June was in vegetables, whose export value fell by 17% over the same month of 2010, to 130 million euros. Specifically, sales of cucumbers fell 56%, tomatoes, 47%, peppers, 33%, and cabbages by 32%.
Meanwhile the export value of fruits dropped by 7.6%, to a total of 458 million euros, according to the figures released by Fepex, reported El Mundo.
As for the volume exported in June, vegetables fell 1% to 185,801 tons, while fruits increased by 6%, so the total volume exported by the sector during the month increased 4% up to 744,443 tons.
In the period from January to June 2011, exports of fruits and vegetables increased by 16% in volume and 3.7% in value to 5.6 million tons and 4,957 million euros respectively, “owing to the continued growth of exports up to the month of May, which offset the reduction in June”.
Compensation for all Damages
Fepex remains concerned over, in their opinion, the “very negative” consequences the “mismanagement” of the E.coli epidemic have had on all exports of fruits and vegetables, and they believe that “the measures taken so far are totally inadequate to compensate for the damage caused”.
For this reason, the federation says they are to propose to the Minister for the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, Rosa Aguilar, a package of measures to compensate for all the damages.
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