In a context of inflation, the message of the Valencian farmers insists on the fair price: “We need to have transparency from the bottom up in which there is a fair profit in all the links”, defends Cristóbal Aguado, president of the Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-ASAJA).
Aguado’s request is not new, far from it, but it is linked to the announcement of the consumer bonus that the Valencian Government presented yesterday after an agreement with distributors and small businesses. Aguado considers that the measure will result in “greater pressure” for farmers: “You can play with transparency, but it will become a pressure on the farmer who will be the one who will end up paying the consequences,” laments Aguado in statements to La Vanguardia .
The proposal launched thanks to the agreement between the Generalitat Valenciana and the CEV, which has led the business negotiation, will include El Corte Inglés, Carrefour, Mercadona, Consum, Más y Más, Alcampo, Hiperber, Dialprix, Spar, Lidl and Dia, who hold a good part of the market share, since only Mercadona exceeds 25%.
In practice, the voucher will be a 90-euro prepaid bank card that consumers can use in any large or small business in the Valencian Community. A measure that has had the support of companies
The measure that will be applied in the Valencian Community -for which the majority consensus of the parliament is still lacking- is a response to the demand that spoke of capping prices, a proposal by Podemos that in Valencian territory was picked up by Hèctor Illueca, Valencian vice president, who defended that it was time to “cap prices and guarantee the population’s food sovereignty so that everyone can have access to the most basic products.
The proposal, which has already cooled down in the national debate, was not shared by distribution -Juan Roig said at the Mercadona press conference that it was “an illusion”- and it is not shared by the countryside either.
The president of AVA-ASAJA has assured this morning that “capping prices is a mistake” and has invited the Administration to avoid any abuses because “if capping the price is going to mean not paying farmers, someone can make a mistake and that some refrigerator is left empty”, has pointed out.
Aguado asks to reflect so that the field is well paid and points to the growing number of abandoned land in the Valencian Community: “You would have to think about how much is being lost because there is no price at which to produce,” he concludes.
