The organic avocado campaign is nearing its end on the coast of Granada, with very high average prices, but with volumes falling short of what was initially expected. Meanwhile, Granada's organic vegetable export season is also drawing to a close, with generally unsatisfactory prices since the start of 2024 due to supply pressure.
"This campaign, we should have had a more abundant avocado production, considering the significant drop we had last year and that we have luckily not suffered any water scarcity issues in our production areas. We have, indeed, had higher volumes than last year, although we would have liked them to be even larger, to allow us to meet all orders," says Fernando Martín, director of Bio Procam, from Motril.
"We expect the avocado campaign to end around April 15 with a fairly high average price, although this doesn't mean it will be very profitable for the producers," says Fernando Martín.
The cooperative produces and markets organic tropical fruits, mainly mango and avocado. In a normal campaign, it will usually reach almost 4 million kilos, although this year the figure will fall to about 2.5 million kilos. It also produces organic vegetables, especially cucumber, tomato and zucchini, whose production has increased significantly this year. In total, Bio Procam markets about 10 million kilos of organic products, exporting 80% of that to countries in central and northern Europe.
As for vegetables, the cooperative is also finishing the autumn-winter export campaign, in which prices fell after a November and December with high prices and good demand. "The prices of cucumber, tomato, zucchini or eggplant have not gone up again since the beginning of 2024," says Fernando Martín. At least, the high prices of November and December, during which Morocco had a more limited presence in Europe due to production issues, will counterbalance that, so the campaign's final balance will be acceptable."
"On the one hand, there have been more late plantings in Almeria which have ended up overlapping with ours, as it was too hot. On the other, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and other central European countries are starting earlier with their campaigns, so our marketing window has been smaller," says the director of this cooperative. "It is also worth recalling that, in this inflationary context, the consumption of organic products has been declining over the last two years."
For more information:
Fernando Martín
BIO PROCAM
Ctra. Almería km. 1,6- Motril (Granada). Spain
T: +34 958600306
[email protected]
www.procamsca.com