trawberry producers, who met this week in Agen, France, within the framework of the Spanish-French-Italian contact group, agreed to introduce a common phytosanitary program and analysed the campaign's prospects, for which production volumes are expected to increase by 8% in France and 2% in Spain.It was agreed, in the first place, to conduct an assessment on the availability of phytosanitary products in the Mediterranean EU countries that produce strawberries, with the goal of giving a boost to the mutual recognition procedure, included in Regulation 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and Council, which has yet to bring the expected results, according to those present at the meeting.
Mutual recognition is an authorisation procedure for phytosanitary products by which a product that has been authorised by a member state for a given use can be automatically authorised by another member state if the agricultural, phytosanitary and environmental conditions are similar.
In second place, it was agreed to identify common issues for which no effective solutions have yet been offered by the phytosanitary industry, with the goal of making proposals that can apply to all members of the group, currently formed by France, Spain and Italy, and to which Portugal will most likely be asked to join in.
After the meeting, a visit to the area's plantations made it clear to the attendees that France's technological level, in terms of greenhouse structures, fertilisation and hydroponics, is very high, and complemented with an optimal crop handling. It is estimated that France currently has around 650 hectares devoted to strawberry cultivation; a figure which is expected to continue growing.
For its part, Spain's strawberry acreage in 2014 is of 6,980 hectares, with a very limited number of hydroponic crops.
