The Government has attributed to the poor harvest of the olive that employment in the field has been destroyed 15 times more than usual in the month of January. This Tuesday, the unemployment data for the aforementioned month have been published, which reveal that the average number of affiliates in the agricultural sector has fallen in the last month by 15,217 people, which multiplies by 15 the average of recent years, as said Israel Arroyo, new Secretary of State for Social Security.

Arroyo has admitted that the employment situation in the agricultural sector has been a "negative surprise" for the Government in January . Farmers and ranchers live a few weeks of high tension because they report that they are not paid a fair price for their products. They criticize that they have also had an increase in their labor costs, and these have been aggravated by the rise in the Minimum Interprofessional Salary.

They have already announced that the measures promised by the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, are not enough to stop their protests. In the conference following the Council of Ministers held today, Planas said that the Government "considers all claims of the agricultural sector legitimate" and therefore, "they have not been asked to cease their claims."

The Government blames this setback in the Social Security affiliation to a cyclical factor such as the bad harvest of the olive in Jaén, Seville and Córdoba "that explain more than 70% of this fall," said Israel Arroyo. Planas has reinforced the argument, highlighting the bad situation the sector is experiencing.

Special measures

In fact, the EU was asked for a measure that is contemplated in exceptional cases, which is the private storage of oil. This option has been activated by the price crisis in the sector and allows the product to be stored so as not to have to sell it below cost.

"The distribution must value the work of Spanish farmers," said Planas. Producers criticize that they are paid very little for the product they grow while supermarket chains sell it later at a much higher price.

That is why the minister has announced some measures to alleviate the situation experienced by farmers, such as the reform of the law of the food chain, which is the rule that establishes how much each party involved in the process has to charge: farmers, intermediaries, distribution ... The idea is to prohibit the sale at a loss, that is, that a farmer cannot be paid less for his product than it costs him to produce it.

Planas has emphasized the sectors with more problems, such as fruit and vegetables, which exports 80% of what it produces. "We export more than we consume annually, even though there are sectors that suffer competition from other markets," he said.

He pointed out that the Government "is concerned about the sector's concern" and has decoupled the rise in the minimum wage because, he says, "it is only part of the problem." "You don't have to make a correlation about the SMI," he said.

In his opinion, the problem is the low prices of the sector and says that the Government has committed to professional associations "to study all the legal instruments that are within our reach so that the products have greater justice in the industry and before consumers ".

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  • Luis Planas
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