The Unió Llauradora reports that the year 2023 concludes with a new loss of cultivated area in the Valencian Community of almost 2,000 hectares compared to 2022, which rises to more than 16,000 hectares if the last four years are added, right from the start date of the pandemic. The information is prepared with data from the Survey of Crop Areas and Yields (ESYRCE).
The loss of cultivated area in 2023 is 1,953 hectares. The decrease in arable crops stands out, with grain cereals leading the way (-3,802 hectares) and forage crops (-1,905 hectares), while there was an increase in grain legumes (2,017 hectares), vegetables and flowers (570 hectares) and industrial crops. (265 hectares). This increase in grain legumes is motivated because the new CAP promotes their cultivation through reinforced conditionality, eco-regimes and aid associated with the production of protein crops and therefore part of the decrease in cereals has gone to the increase in this crop.
On the other hand, the area of ??woody crops decreased (-1,042 hectares) because the decreases in citrus (-1,737 hectares), vineyards (-921 hectares) and other croplands (-686 hectares) were greater than the increases in the other crops. Citrus and fruit trees are the crops that occupy the most surface area in the Valencian territory, representing between the two groups practically half of the total crop land (49.4%). There are 154,157 hectares cultivated with citrus fruits in the Valencian Community and 152,983 hectares of non-citrus fruit trees.
If the data for the last four years are compared, the figure for loss of cultivated area is 16,030 hectares. 6,199 hectares of citrus trees have stopped being cultivated. 4,494 of cereals, 2,708 of vineyards, 2,143 of non-citrus fruit trees, 2,024 of vegetables and flowers, 1,308 of forage and 926 of olive groves.
The total cultivated area in the Valencian Community is 622,144 hectares. If the cultivated and non-cultivated areas are added (forestry, meadows and pastures and other areas, which include vacant lands), it remains stable at 2,326,000 hectares in recent years.
The refusal of the PP-Vox Government of the Generalitat to approve the amendments proposed by LA UNIÓ to the 2024 agricultural budgets is a new brake on the “bleeding of loss of cultivated area in the Valencian territory.” The proposals, which sought to allocate significant funds to direct policies to support farmers and ranchers, were rejected, leaving thousands of producers in the Valencian Community unprotected.
The organization proposed modifications to the budgets of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries worth only 9.9 million euros to allocate resources to socioeconomic measures that would benefit farmers and ranchers at a challenging time, marked by the effects of the drought, the conflict in Ukraine and the increasing pressure of production costs.
Carles Peris, general secretary of LA UNIÓ, indicates that “this new loss of farmland, together with that of recent years, shows that regional policies must be adopted to avoid this situation and help maintain their farms. to professional farmers and ranchers. “Mimicking state and European policies without doing anything else with the Department of Agriculture’s own budget is letting the sick person die.”