Farmers and ranchers are at the limit before the uncontrolled ascent of their production costs. Only in recent months fertilizers have climbed 300%; Electric power 270%, diesel by 73% or feed 23% ... are just some of the examples of what is already considered the most expensive agricultural campaign in history.
Thousands of agrarian farms are today on the verge of disappearance. Complaints for the misuse of the food chain united to the price pressure that the supermarkets will end up creating the perfect storm. The agricultural sector screams desperate, but at the moment nobody listens.
Three hectares to cultivate peppers 'California Red' are those that Has Antonio Navarro, 50, in the municipality of La Majonerra (Almería). As usual in the Spanish field, the tradition counts and a lot, so since I was 18 years old he started working with his father. Now her daughter, Jennifer, 27, graduated in artistic drawing, follows her steps by not finding another job. "In the 30 years I've been cultivating, I never saw anything like, they never climbed so many inputs at the same time; They climbed taxes sometimes, on other occasions another input, but all at a time, together, as now, never, it is the perfect storm, "he writes - and unfortunately many farmers are going to be on the road."
His campaign began on July 25 and will end in spring with the aim of reaching 1,500 kg. of pimento The spreadsheet is transparent: for each hectare of crop last year 67,000 euros was spent. Amortization expenses have been raised to 75% more. The plastics of the exploitation cover, when greenhouse, has to change them every three years. In total, the budget will amount to 75,000 euros -8,000 euros more than past season - because fertilizers have been 64% of this campaign, the four nitrate fertilizers that mixes plus sulfate. It has been spent 4,300 euros in these three months of cultivation in this section. Above, the supply of plastic, fundamental in the production area of Almería, has uploaded by 25% its price and the energy cost by 270%, an essential system to use for irrigation engines.
The community of irrigators, responsible for bringing water from aquifers, already figures by 300% rise in energy costs in the province almeria. "Health measures for the pandemic within the facilities, such as cooperatives, have expanded the spaces of separation among workers so what was previously done in a shift is now done in several. Expenses have increased a lot, such as labor with the rise of almost 30% of the SMI, and as we do not set the prices of our products ... ». So the future is "very uncertain", so it does not entail that young people do not join the agrarian sector.
With 54 years old and 37 in the cereal sector in an exploitation of Ledigos (Palencia), Donaciano Dujo believes that the worst of this situation of price rise "is the great uncertainty that it generates because if something we need the people of the field is Safety », warns, and not only by the production itself but also in aspects as theoretically unimaginable until recently, as for example the difficulty when finding pieces for the renewal of agricultural machinery. "There is concern and fear," he recognizes him to show his fear, even, that in spring there may be fertilizers in the market.
Only in fertilizers, electricity and diesel oil, expenses will be increased in a production of 150 hectares of average to almost 10,000 euros, so it already calculates that with the rise of 300% in fertilizers and almost 80% in diesel, The budget is going to shoot him. "I have never seen an equal situation, they have never uploaded both the production costs to take the cereal planting," donaciano insists. "Everything is so volatile that they do not even assure you that they built you a ship because they simply do not know if they are going to have the materials, they do not know at what price, and that has never been seen." The cost of the inputs has risen "a barbarity", which should lead "to a reflection to the government and the EU" because "this has to stop in some way."
In this regard, it points out that it is essential that Spain is self-sufficient in products of first necessity and in production goods, "as it could be proved during the pandemic, having its own production, because if not then we have to import it, late and expensive," Holds. In addition to advocating aid to agricultural sectors that worse is happening, this cereal points to an application "with a rigor of the food chain, with long-term contracts" and a unit of the field before administration: "Produce to losses you can endure A time but not in the long term because if it is not preferable to close the exploitation; We do not know what profitability we are going to have next year in dry agriculture, how much they will produce our lands, what value will have those cereals that we have sown. " And he forecasts if there is no solution in a short time: "Consumers are going to have to pay a very expensive food."
At 38, Juan Francisco Chamorro harvest at this time of year in his lands of Zurbarán (Badajoz), both olive and also prepares sowing for the next rice campaign. He considers the situation of the primary sector as "dramatic" and puts the accent on the price of agricultural gasoil, which last year it cost between 40-45 cents the liter when it is now established at 90 cents. Also in the exorbitant rise of light, which affects dried, irrigation systems, all kinds of facilities for our machinery for livestock for agriculture, our tractors, tools, our cars ... and the times it has uploaded.
«If it were not enough, we have climbed the quota of autonomous, the SMI, the inputs, the fertilizers also double what was worth last year ... There are times they have to treat us as foolish so that we realize of what is happening, "Chamorro complains, which assures that the Middle Citizen may not give it to him" because many claim that they do not affect them because they do not light the light at home, even if they go stumbled to dark, but when they go to the supermarket. Then they are paying the increase in the light of that establishment, the rise in costs of the production of the product, of the expenses that we are having ..., so they are realized. "
In addition, it qualifies that "people have to be clear that this increase in consumer prices is not impact on us, farmers and ranchers because production costs are much higher than price difference at origin." In addition, it considers that the Administration wants an agrarian sector "divided and confronted" and considers the entry of agri-food products from third countries: "We are already dependent, especially China, in most things, and We are also going to let us be now in the food sector, something so important? "He asks, after remembering what happened in pandemic with the supply of masks, which had to be requested and proceeded very expensive abroad. "The treaties with third countries of free trade are harming us because they do not compete with the same rules as us." So he predicts: "If they drop the primary sector, the whole country will fall."
Large family tradition -When generation-, Antonio López (40 years old) has a breeding of merino sheep that has some 5,000 mothers in some land in almost its entirety near Don Benito (Badajoz). "What is more damaged is the rise of the feast because he has spent two years of costing 40 pesetas to 54 more VAT." After the years, he still calculates the prices in this coin, although to summarize the expenses of the previous campaign he goes to his official records, already in euros. "I spent monthly between 600 and 700 euros in buying I think to supply the sheep, but in the last month I have been shot at 1,300 euros." The double. "And to that we have to add social insurance, the lease of the farms, the diesel for the tractor ... a disaster, I never saw anything the same," he complains.
Antonio occurs similarly with nitrate, whose ton is already about 800 euros and over "seasons we are always looking at the sky, to see if it rains, but as it rains less, logically, you have to throw more feed to mothers ». So «Right now we are almost 'close to' money to the production of lambs».
So the ranmaker qualifies "criticism" the situation of the sector, which has joined the disease of the blue language, which has forced him to sacrifice several gap. «I already told me my grandmother that we had to be saved for bad years, but now all the campaigns lately are like that, with this tremendous price rise, and those who have gotten into mortgages by purchase of ships, tractors or cars, they're going to happen really bad ».
Her father, 70, active retiree, work in her production. "It is impossible to find someone with responsibility to take care of the field, or it has been blowing since small, or after three days they get aburred. I owe my wife the four or five last years on vacation because I can not take off from the sheep, 365 days a year, it is impossible, "he regrets, to which he joins his criticism of scarce aid to enhance the access of Young people to the agrarian world: "One who is going to start can not invest with these high costs, it is impossible, in my case, fortunately, I had my father ...».
"There is no justification and there is no explanation to this exorbitant price rise." This is why Razona Juan Luis Delgado, 48, livestock with approximately 1,000 hectares rented in small plots in fountains of the Masueco, a population belonging to the municipality of the horse's head (Salamanca). "We have never lived a situation like this and more considering that we come from many months of pandemic, where everything was paralyzed and there should be a wider offer of products," Razona him. Now, the steel, very necessary because it serves to build, for example, corrals or the expansion of ships, has risen 78% and the feed, 35%, to feed its extensive livestock of meat and mebeard for cows. Do not stay there. He has counted that fertilizers have risen 300%, the fertilizer more than 250% ...
This rancher has been thrown out of calculator and values that the total spending it has for each cow a year in extensive is 553 euros while the total income remains at 551 euros; That is, it loses two euros for each specimen. 50% of male animals sell them at 700 euros and females at 550 euros, which does not compensate with cow pasture expenses (270 euros on a three-hectare land) or 87 euros of straw, 81 feed each 180 days as a measure of overfeeding due to not enough grass, more veterinary treatments, amortizations of installations, machines, hoppers, etc.
"Society must be aware that prices must have an impact on farmers and farmers, people do not mind buying a mobile for 500 euros and at six months to buy another more expensive, and nothing happens ... but with the Agrarian world does not think the same ». And he puts another example: "They charged me the other day at a restaurant 48 euros per kilo de chuletón, but as much as we pay us at 4 euros the kilo; And I only ask that at least give us an euro, who pay us five ». In this sense, he complains that the Law of the Food Chain is not well developed and asks "that compensate us if the production costs is possible." And a key element: "To be able to play with the same rules of play to compete with third countries, who do not pass health controls and all kinds that we do for us here to sell our products."
Date Of Update: 07 November 2021, 03:02
