The fruits multiply the price of the tree at the supermarket by eight

These are official data, extracted from the latest report on the Food Price Index at Origin and Destination (IPOD).

Farmers are up in arms over the low remuneration they receive for their summer harvest, which then shoots up its price at points of sale.

It is a story repeated summer after summer: a whole year working on the fruit to ensure a good harvest in quantity and quality so that later it is only noticeable in the prices for sale, very high for seasonal fruit with normal production levels. even higher as it is this year. However, the remuneration for the producer remains the pending issue, not reaping the fruits of these high prices in any way.

In this way, nectarines, peaches, plums, platerinas, etc. are reaching prices in fruit shops and supermarkets that are, on average, higher than they should, while at origin small producers are being paid "ridiculous" amounts that are later see them multiply up to eight times at the point of sale.

The data is conclusive. According to the latest Price Index at Origin and Destination of food (IPOD), peaches are being paid 0.40 euros per kilo to farmers while in supermarkets they are on average around 3.50 euros... that is, nothing less that 8.8 times more! In the case of nectarines, the 0.50 euros that farmers receive per kilo of harvest multiplies by 590%, up to the 3.45 that the consumer pays (6.9 times more), while the plum shoots up its price from 0.42 euros/kilo to 3.49 (731% increase, 8.31 times its original cost).

Sales to results

These abysmal differences have raised farmers in arms, who do not hesitate to blame this situation on "brutal speculation" and on an illegal practice that has been consolidated in the sector in recent years since Russia's ban on agricultural products from The EU would turn the market upside down: profiteering, which happens when intermediaries acquire fruit from small producers without a contract or any agreement on the price. Thus, depending on what has been sold, the different operators in the chain are remunerated and "if there is anything left" the farmers are paid. "Normally extremely low values," denounces the general secretary of the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA), Lorenzo Ramos.

«Many cooperatives and private fruit and vegetable centers do not commit to anything, they collect your fruit without giving you further explanations and liquidate you months later. There is no right, it is a complete abuse," details Ramos, who this Wednesday held a meeting with ministry officials to demand controls at origin that put an end to these maneuvers expressly prohibited by the Food Chain Law.

These abusive practices only occur in the summer fruit sector.

"Abusive" practices that, according to UPA, only occur in the summer fruit sector, "one of the most backward in the much-sought rebalancing of the food chain." "We only ask for a contract that allows us to know how much we will charge, with a reference to prices and weekly settlements," says the farmers' spokesperson, who directly accuses the intermediaries of "making a profit at the expense of us and the consumers." In his opinion, if many small producers knew the amounts they were going to receive months after having delivered their crops "they would leave them on the tree."

Fruit that is not paid to the farmer for its poor condition, nevertheless ends up in the points of sale

But this is not the only irregular maneuver that farmers denounce. They also claim to have observed that 'waste' items - that is, fruits that do not meet the calibers and quality standards demanded by buyers and that therefore are not paid to farmers - finally end up at points of sale.

The result is that consumers find on the shelves "mediocre, poorly handled and in a very improvable condition at a price that does not correspond to their deplorable condition," concludes Ramos. "Whatever the farmer is not paid does not have to end up in the market" and if it does, or is derived from the production of juices or jams, "the producer will also have to charge something."