Freshuelva warns of the serious consequences of cost increases in the berry sector | Heconomia.es - Economic and business information of Huelva

The Huelva Strawberry Producers and Exporters Association, Freshuelva, warned today of the "serious consequences" that the province's red fruit sector is suffering from the disproportionate increase in production costs and that can make it very difficult its profitability during the campaign.

Freshuelva has detailed that producers find this year that they have to face costs that have skyrocketed to almost impossible levels with increases of 20% in plants, 150% in fertilizers, 33% in water or 46% in plastics, although the rises affecting diesel used by tractors (+73%) and electricity (+270%) are even more spectacular. Added to this are the labor and socio-sanitary costs derived from the pandemic, which have increased by almost 30% in the last three years.

In this sense, he has justified and supported the mobilizations called in the field, since, in addition, the increase in food prices that consumers are facing "does not affect farmers, the first link in the food chain, who they see how their losses increase when they don't even cover production costs with sales, on certain occasions during the campaign”.

That is why Freshuelva has called on the administrations for "effective measures" to reverse this situation so that "farmers have prices that allow them to live with dignity from their farms", while calling on large stores to bet on local products and at prices that are fair for producers and consumers”.

At this point, Freshuelva has shown its "concern" that this situation of increased costs "is taken advantage of by third countries that sell in Europe without the need to pay tariffs and with much lower production costs, carrying out unfair competition in the markets. ”, for which they have warned large surfaces of the “importance” of betting on local productions in order “to be able to overcome this serious problem among all parts of the food chain”; At the same time, they have demanded from the administrations measures that favor this consumption on such important dates as these.