According to the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA), this week’s most recent increase in the price of agricultural diesel was “another severe blow to national farms”: “The average price on Monday was 1.73 euros per liter, which translates into an increase of 13 cents compared to last week and 89 cents compared to the average price of January 2021”, he explains.
In a context of frequent crises, such as the pandemic, drought or war, with impacts on production and food, it must be a priority for the Government to adopt public policies that enable the existence of many prosperous family farms, as a guarantee of food sovereignty of the country”, maintains the confederation in a statement.
As he points out, “with these successive increases, a medium-sized family farm that at the beginning of last year spent about 3,500 euros per month on diesel, today spends, on average, about 7,300 euros, which represents an average monthly increase of 3,700 euros”.
For the agrarian confederation, “this difficult situation of national agriculture is not compatible with the lack of action on the part of the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture, nor with the supposed fatality that the price of fuel will only drop when the war ends.” .
“It is urgent to regulate fuel prices and create conditions to mitigate the increase in other production costssuch as animal feed, fertilizers, among others, which in many cases more than tripled in the space of a year”, he maintains.
Regarding the increase in production costs, the CNA gives another example: “A farmer who spent 2,600 euros last year on fertilizers and phytopharmaceuticals used in an orchard of little more than one hectare of blueberries has, this year, a account close to 10,000 euros”, he points out.
Faced with this increase in costs, the confederation says that, even when the prices paid to farmers for their production increase, “they are far below what would be needed to face the brutal increase in costs”.
According to the CNA, “to guarantee the financial viability of agricultural operations, it is necessary, without further delay, to guarantee the flow of production at fair prices, through creation of a law that prohibits sales at a loss throughout the agri-food chain”.
The aim is to “protect the position of farmersthat continue to be the weakest link in the chain, receiving little for what they produce, while consumers pay more and more in large distribution”.
Source: Observadora
