Orange growers from Spain’s Costa Blanca and Valencia demonstrate against cheap imports

FARMERS in the Valencian Community are appealing to retailers and customers to buy Spanish oranges.

The Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-ASAJA) assures that cheap imports from countries such as Egypt are appearing in the region and that they may have “confusing” labels that make consumers believe that they are buying local products.

AVA-ASAJA has asked retailers, distributors and buyers to give priority to Valencian and Spanish oranges, which offer an optimal degree of ripeness and guarantee the highest standards of freshness, quality, food safety and environmental sustainability.

With the sharp decline in the citrus harvest throughout the Mediterranean basin, mainly due to last year’s drought, AVA-ASAJA has detected in recent days that ‘some companies are introducing shipments from third countries, with the aim of increasing the profit margins and use them to push down the prices of local citrus.”

“The largest amount of imported fruit at the moment are oranges from Egypt, although there are also oranges from Turkey and mandarins from Morocco,” explains AVA-ASAJA.

The president of the organization, Cristóbal Aguado, has urged “prioritizing the consumption of our oranges and mandarins.”

“We cannot behave less than the French and Italians, who know how to defend their products and place them ahead of cheaper imports because the fruit is produced in miserable working conditions, without environmental controls and without the use of materials that are prohibited here” Aguado said.

Aguado also demanded a better and clearer identification of the origin of citrus fruits and criticized the European Union for encouraging “unfair competition” by allowing cheap imports.