Press release
, François-Xavier Branthôme
Italy's South-central region is still waiting for an agreement on the 2022 price for processing tomatoes. The ANICAV has referred to "unjustified demands from agricultural partners" that are likely to put "an entire industry in danger!"
According to an ANICAV press release dated May 17, 2022, "despite the industry's willingness to endorse a higher benchmark price increase than in the North, the agricultural partners have arbitrarily put forward a request for an increase that is totally unjustified, even taking account of the recorded increases in production costs, the impact of which is no different in the South from what it is in the North.
Apart from an analysis of production costs, for which it is quite obvious that the figures circulating in recent weeks are not sufficiently relevant, and by reasoning only on the basis of income per hectare taking account of the average yield and reference price as the only sure and objective data, it becomes even more difficult to understand the demands of the agricultural side.
Considering the price proposed by processors (EUR 120 /mT for round tomatoes and EUR 130 /mT for oblong tomatoes, that is to say an increase of EUR 15 on the amount paid in 2021), agricultural operators would benefit from an income that is EUR 2,700 higher than the income of growers in the North (+35%), while that income increase would amount to more than EUR 4,500 (+57%) in the event that the request submitted by the POs were to be accepted (EUR 140 /mT for round tomatoes and EUR 150 /mT for oblong ones)."
ANICAV data
"The costs per hectare declared in recent days by agricultural partners highlight an exaggerated difference with those of the Northern basin, where an agreement was finally reached on a price of EUR 108.50. We cannot consider compensating for this lack of coherence by overloading the industrial sector and, consequently, the final consumer already burdened by the high increases resulting from the war," said ANICAV president Marco Serafini. "There is a serious risk of jeopardizing the processing tomato sector in the South-central Basin, with significant repercussions on the economy and on land use. We hope that the sense of responsibility of the people called to represent the agricultural world will allow negotiations to resume in the interest of the entire sector."
"The requests of the agricultural side," continued Giovanni De Angelis, Director of the ANICAV, "are unjustified and appear speculative to some observers. It will be essential to carry out a study of production costs in agriculture, possibly with the participation of the MIPAAF, in order to obtain objective data on which to base negotiations for the next processing season."
Sources: ANICAV, freshplaza.it
