With the Pope you don't play.

Distributors, cooperatives and potato producers denounce the “fraudulent promotion” of support for the sector.

Distributors, cooperatives and potato producers have joined their voices to denounce the “demagogy” and “fraudulent promotion” which means that distribution chains offer locally produced potatoes to the public at 48 cents per kilo, arguing that the Canarian countryside is enhanced, when international conditions allow greater profitability for farmers in the Islands, as stated at a press conference.

This has been an atypical year in Europe, and especially in the United Kingdom, for potato production. Less has been planted and there has been more rain, so productions have been lower and the price has become more expensive. “It was the right time for Canarian producers to benefit from better sales prices in the local market.”, explained the president of the Association of Potato Distributors (ADIPA) Gran Canaria, Juan Luis Pulido.

Pulido pointed out that the international context allowed farmers to charge between 45 and 60 cents per kilo by harvest. by cons, farmers and distributors have encountered a local potato offer for sale to the public in a large chain of food stores to 48 cents per kilo.

The president of ADIPA referred specifically to the agreement between Cooperativa Centro and Hiperdino. “Now that bringing potatoes from outside costs up to 80 cents, It is unacceptable that they release this offer with local production forcing the rest of the producers to lower their prices to be able to compete. If the kilo of potatoes is sold at 48 cents, the farmer is not getting paid 25 cents per kilo”, said Pulido for whom “You cannot go around proclaiming that you support the Canarian countryside because their actions demonstrate the opposite., What they want to sink the primary sector”.

He considered that if a food chain really wants to help the Canarian countryside, it should copy the formulas that work in other parts of Europe. “in such a way that at the beginning of the harvest sign a contract with a guaranteed minimum price“. “This is how you help the field, This is how you help the farmer, This is how employment is promoted. But in these circumstances, agriculture is not helped, but rather the four poor people who remain in the countryside are ruined.”.

The provincial coordinator of COAG Canarias, Juan Hernandez Suarez, considered that it is a “fraudulent promotion, that falsifies reality“. “With these offers there is demagoguery, boasting that it helps agriculture in the Canary Islands.”, said Hernandez. He insisted that with those prices, “and in the best of cases”, the producers are getting paid 25 cents per kilo “When producing each kilo costs between 45 and 50 cents per kilo”.

“With these types of measures, in just over a decade, they have loaded the 40% of production in the Canary Islands. Distribution chains should be more careful with these promotions, those offers and that information they give. Transparency would be absolute and real if in these promotions, next to the retail price, put how much the producer was paid”, said Hernandez.

On the other hand, the president of the Los Canariones Cooperative, Agustín Vera, highlighted that This is not the first time these strategies have been used.. “It's been three years in a row and you can't compete with this thing that attacks the farmer., to the rest of the cooperatives and small businesses”. “Income in the sector was increasing and this offer has been a real blow”, he said.