Planas promises farmers to scrutinize costs and pursue companies that force them to sell at a loss with more inspections

Cristina Alonso Madrid

Madrid

Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-19:09

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,

Luis Planas

, has committed to farmers to

scrutinize the costs they bear at source and to pursue companies that force them to sell at a loss with more inspections

. This is everything that the primary sector professionals who have taken a break from their day of mobilizations to attend the meeting together with the rest of the representatives of the different links in the food chain have started at the contact meeting this Wednesday.

A commitment, that's all, for now. Today's meeting was the prelude to the meeting that will take place tomorrow at the Ministry's headquarters, which will be attended by the leaders of the agricultural organizations and the minister himself, and in which Planas is expected to propose a package of measures. concrete measures to try to respond even to part of the demands of the countryside and try to appease the mobilizations that have now been going on for a week and a half in Spain. The main agrarian organizations, in any case, predict that the Government's offer will be "insufficient" and they anticipate that they will maintain the calendar of protests.

Although today's meeting was already planned before the fuse of the European protests was lit in the Spanish countryside and farmers took their tractors to the streets and highways throughout the country, in the current context it has been a key meeting. This is the biannual meeting of

the Food Chain Observatory

, in which all links of the chain are represented, from the primary sector to distribution, including industry. Expectations were high, but the match, which was technical in nature, did not generate too many headlines.

Sources present at the meeting that was held behind closed doors at the Ministry of Agriculture say that the minister has communicated, on the one hand, that his team is already working on the creation of a

cost observatory

, to scrutinize the cost pressure that producers suffer at origin. And, on the other hand, it has been announced that the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA) is going to

increase inspections and investigate the relationships of companies with their suppliers

to guarantee that companies comply with the Chain Law that prohibits the sale at a loss, a practice that forces farmers to lower their prices and sell below cost.

Regarding the first measure, it has been welcomed by representatives of the agri-food sector, since, although the Ministry publishes prices at origin monthly, they consider that greater knowledge of their relationship with energy, feed or fertilizer costs would provide transparency to the when setting prices in contracts. However, different organizations consulted question that this statistic "is not done overnight, it takes a lot of work and it will take time to be published."

And on the second, companies in the sector, especially farmers, applaud the intensification of inspections to guarantee compliance with the Chain Law. However, they demand that the Ministry increase the sanctions it imposes on companies that commit violations by linking the amounts to billing and that producers be compensated for the economic losses they suffer due to these practices, something to which Planas has closed the door. .

The minister has defended the proper functioning of the Chain Law, but has admitted that it is necessary to strengthen its control. And to contribute to the improvement, it has invited the representatives of the

"weakest link in the chain", that is, the agricultural organizations, to formalize complaints from their associates to the competent authorities

, while at the same time it has requested the regional officials that they deepen their work of controlling and processing complaints, which always guarantee confidentiality so as not to harm the person who filed it.

Prices and consumer habits

During the ordinary session, the first to be held in 2024, two studies were presented that analyze the evolution of prices and consumption of food and beverages, as well as the new version of the Farm Cost and Income Studies tool. agrarian, designed by the Undersecretariat of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the ministry.

The analysis of price evolution, carried out by the INE, highlights that food was the group of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that grew the most on average during 2023, with a rate of 11.7%. This percentage was higher for processed foods (13.3%) and lower for fresh foods (9.3%). Agriculture has recalled that the year closes with a year-on-year increase in the CPI for food and non-alcoholic beverages of 7.3%, very far from the 15.4% in January 2023.

On the other hand, the Kantar consulting firm's report on food consumption in 2023 shows that the volume purchased by households has stabilized, that in the last weeks of December the price increase slowed down and that households are increasingly betting on private label option when they fill their basket with packaged products.