usatoday24
More than market fluctuationsthe production costs or the rain. If there is something capable of removing the dream from Spanish farmers dedicated to tomato cultivation, China is. The Asian giant is the great tomato garden of the world and it is increasingly difficult to compete with its prices. Hence, in Extremadura, the region that More hectares dedicated to industrial plantations, recognize That today the competition of the Asian vegetable is its “biggest problem.”
The big question is … What to expect from now on?
Tomato “Made in Extremadura”. If we talk about Spanish tomatoespecially from industry oriented, Extremadura is the king. In the 2023 campaign, the 75% of the surface of cultivation of the country, at a considerable distance from Andalusia (11.3%) and Navarra (7.9%). And the percentage is even greater if we talk about production volume. In 2021 the regional government estimated that the surface dedicated to the crop was around 23,000 hectares. Throughout Spain it was around 31,000.
A sector with swings. The tomato industry is powerful, but like many other crops is subject to the fields of the field and the market. In January, for example, Extremaduran farmers They alerted that the price of the fruit was below the cost of production: the vegetable ton was quoted at 107 euros in the private industry and 115 in cooperatives, far from the 140 reached in 2024 or the average cost of production of recent years, which It was 128.
“The situation of tomato is unbearable. If urgent measures are not taken, many farmers will be forced to abandon the crop, which will seriously affect the sustainability of the sector and employment in the Extremaduran field,” warned At the beginning of the year Juan Metidieri, president of Aigg Extremadura Asaja. This year the culture surface will be reduced by several hectares, Precise The economistamong other reasons to avoid stock accumulation.
China slopes. In the sector there is, however, something that rests so much or more than production costs or fluctuations in the price of the vegetable. Farmers have been concerned for a long time. Heavyweight of the world tomato market, China, which leads the “Top 4” next to the United States, India and Türkiye. According to data from World Population Reviewits production exceeded in 2022 the 68 million tons and a large part of that fruit ends in the world market -oriented market circuit.
The problem is not so much the huge production of China and its prices and the pressure they exert in the sector. A few months ago, during An interview with Financial TimesFrancesco Mutti, the executive director of the sauce manufacturer who takes his last name, warned that much of the cheap tomato paste that arrives from China occurs in the Xinjiang region, where companies benefit from “very, very low labor costs.” That panorama and the different requirements facing European and Asian crops They worry Also in Extremadura.
“It’s the biggest problem”. Its effect on the market worries so much that Domingo Fernández, president of APIS Group and manager of Agrifood Cooperatives of Extremadura, recognized recently to The economist that right now the Chinese tomato represents “the biggest problem.” The reason? In his opinion, the differences in controls in Spain and China derives in a “unfair competition.”
Similar opinion shared Recently in Today José A. Gutiérrez, Farmer: “What we can not compete in the supermarket with products that enter Spain without those limitations. Compites against a Chinese tomato that has no traceability. It requires controls that are not appreciated in the market.”
Are you worrying alone in Extremadura? At all. The sector has been on guard for Asian competition for years, something that is seen with concern both in Extremadura and in other regions or countries of Europe. In 2016 the Las Marismas Cooperativa, in Andalusia, He warned Of the challenges that Spanish farmers face: “They ask us for European quality at the price of Chinese tomato, something impossible taking into account the costs for the industry.”
If someone has expressed themselves in a resounding and achieved echo manner in the sector, it is, however, the Italian Francesco Mutti, at the head of a business conglomerate dedicated to food that only in 2023 he billed 665 million of euros.
Restrictions, tariffs? “We should stop the importation of Chinese tomato paste or add a 60% tax so that its cost is not so different from Italian products,” Mutti advocates before insisting that “more than 90%” of China’s tomatoes occur in Xinjiang, a region subject to scrutiny of the United Nations allegations of Human Rights against the Uigur minority, including episodes of forced labor.
“We must protect them”. According to FTin 2024 China monopolized 23% of the global tomato production, several points above 18% of the previous year. Its production is also much cheaper: Chinese tomato paste costs about half that created in Italy. “We must teach our farmers to grow better, but also protect them from unfair competition. Otherwise, the result will not be a better environment, but to transfer our production abroad,” Mutti advocateswho has already sent his concerns to Brussels.
The panorama, Remember Antonio Lucas MarínProfessor of Sociology and Economist, it does not seem simple: China The flow of Chinese tomato paste has been growing after the increase in energy and fertilizers in Europe. In the case of Extremadura, Asian competition will not be felt alone in Spain. The export community Thousands of tons of prepared or preserved tomato.
“The Extremadura Tomato Transformation Industries have become the leading agri -food export sector Extremadura, ahead of the fruit. More than 80% of the total is allocated to the export market, with prominent markets such as France, the United Kingdom or Germany among many others,” he says A report on the production and economic footprint of the sector published in 2022.
Images | Sue Thompson (Flickr), /Ricardo (UNSPLASH) and Lid (Flickr)
In Xataka | The science of finding tomatoes that really know Tomate, that increasingly elusive holy grail
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings