The Huelva strawberry has been involved in an outrageous controversy, with a serious risk of harming the sector and its exports, the result of an alleged German boycott that never really existed. A campaign to collect signatures from a platform in Germany that urges citizens to demand that supermarkets not sell Spanish strawberries due to the drying up of Doñana has not been supported by any of them, who continue to import this product –duly certified– at your usual pace.
The electoral use of the matter by politicians campaigning for 23-J, both from the Government and the opposition, by transcending the initiative in social networks and the media, has fueled the controversy. To make matters worse, coincidences in the calendar meant that this week a trip by German deputies to Spain materialized, which included a visit to Andalusia, planned for a long time, to “exchange information and collect data on a subject that is of interest to both countries, namely, climate change and its consequences.†Given the commotion, the visitors suppressed the Andalusian stage of the trip.
And that was how the elements came together to unleash the perfect storm that has hit the Huelva strawberry industry, a sector that is not without its problems.
Campact, the German platform initiating the boycott call, wants to gather 200,000 signatures and is explicitly targeting the German supermarket chains Aldi, Edeka, Lidl and Rewe. The group, which carries out its campaigns via the Internet, began the campaign for the Spanish strawberry on May 26, and in two weeks it has collected just over 170,000 signatures, in a country of 84 million inhabitants.
“Germany is the most important buyer of Spanish strawberries. A third of the fruit grown in Spain ends up in our supermarkets, even in winter,†says Campact. Imported strawberries are often significantly cheaper than German strawberries because harvest workers are exploited in Spain. Such strawberries are cheap at the expense of nature and people.” Campact also criticizes the irrigation law advocated by the Andalusian government of the PP because “even more water will be used for the cultivation of strawberries”, which is equivalent to “destroying the fragile ecosystem” of Doñana.
Germany is the largest export market for the Huelva strawberry, with an annual turnover of 186 million euros. According to the Interfresa association, the strawberries and red fruits from Huelva exported to Germany have the Spring certification, which guarantees the legality of the water supply sources, a certification required by the large supermarkets: Rewe, Aldi, Lidl , Edeka and Kaufland. Aldi reiterated this week its commitment to its Spanish strawberry suppliers.
Another issue is the prominence that the German chains give to regional and local production. Thus, in Berlin right now almost all the strawberries for sale in supermarkets and stores come from Brandenburg, the agricultural land that surrounds the capital, and foreign strawberries – Spanish, Greek or Italian – are used to cover seasonal peaks in demand. .
Caught between two fires, the deputies of the Bundestag Committee on the Environment, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection took to their heels upon landing in Madrid, “in view of the great political relevance that the issues of the trip have acquired in recent days ahead of the next Spanish national electionsâ€.
