Harvests threatened by lack of labour, warns farmers’ union
MUCH of the workforce who harvest fruit and vegetables in Spain are seasonal workers from abroad, but many are currently unable to come due to measures to contain the Covid19 pandemic.
The Alicante province branch of the young farmers’ association (ASAJA) warned that summer stone fruits harvests begin in just two weeks but many farmers who cultivate them do not have even half of the workers they need.
For example, production of loquats (‘nísperos’ in Spanish) is concentrated in the Marina Baixa area, where farmers claim 40% of the harvest could be lost if the government does not allow temporary workers into the country or help them to find people who want to work in the fields. Many seasonal workers come from Romania and currently are not allowed to leave that country.
ASAJA noted that this year’s harvest is expected to be ‘exceptional’, with about 13 million kilos thanks to the mild winter temperatures and plentiful rain.
“We are facing millions of euros in losses and the destruction of this emblematic and artisanal crop,” said the president of ASAJA in Callosa d’en Sarrià, Rafael Gregori.
The citrus fruit sector in the Vega Baja fears ‘a massive exodus of workers to the stone fruits harvest in Murcia, which starts in a few days and they have already agreed employment contracts’, said ASAJA.
They urged the government to find a solution as, ‘this is causing worrying uncertainty in the food sector, which is fundamental in this health crisis’.
The association insisted a deal must be made quickly with the EU to ‘facilitate movement of workers inside the EU or from North Africa’.
The alternative is to ‘call on everyone who has been made unemployed by this crisis to work in the fields, creating a system which can make it compatible with an ERTE (temporary lay-off) without losing their benefits’, ASAJA proposed.
On Wednesday, the government announced it will distribute €236 million for town halls to hire around 200,000 farm workers to do jobs which their local councils will decide.