While the shortage of labor continues to pose an increasingly significant challenge, the ongoing drought, which is affecting nearly the entire country, is truly putting Huelva's berry sector on the ropes. In fact, it might be necessary to take drastic measures this very season, coinciding with the period of highest production.

"We need a short-term solution to try salvaging this campaign, as well as long-term solutions to ensure the sector's survival and prevent the loss of the current market share of Spanish berries," says the manager of a cooperative in Huelva, who wished to remain anonymous.

"The drought has led to a 50% cut in the water allocation for irrigation, and if we do not get the necessary infrastructures to ensure a sufficient water supply and it continues not to rain, we may be forced to plant less, causing us to lose a commercial window that could be difficult to regain," says the representative of this producing and exporting entity.

"Urgent measures are needed in the short term, and although several solutions have already been approved, their implementation will only happen after the completion of a bureaucratic process. Such is the case of the large Portuguese dam of Alqueva or the possibility of extracting water from the Guadiana river. We are still in time for these measures to be implemented, and the sector is resiliently waiting," he says.

"As for the long term, the fact is that Huelva has always had enough water, so the sector has perhaps done little to prevent such a situation. We will need to construct infrastructures that should allow us to be prepared for this kind of situation in the future. Budgets have already been approved, but once again, we are facing bureaucratic obstacles," says the leader of this cooperative.

Europe has been importing more strawberries from Egypt due to the limited Spanish supply
The strawberry campaign is a few weeks behind compared to last year, especially for the earliest varieties.

"There has been a great shortage in the market in the first part of the campaign. In the same period last year, there was a good supply, so many supermarket chains had similar expectations. Morocco has also seen its production fall, so a greater amount of lower quality strawberries have been imported from Egypt," says the producer and exporter.

Prices are considerably higher than last year, with an average of 4.47 euros per kilo in week 3, according to the Prices and Markets Observatory of the Government of Andalusia, compared to the 1.95 € per kilo of the same period in the previous campaign. "These are high prices, but not enough to make up for the high production costs in an inflationary context, considering the volumes harvested," he says.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com