The war in Ukraine, Europe’s breadbasket, with its ports also in dry dock and its silos destroyed or without the possibility of releasing the stored grain, and the sanctions against Russia, another large producer, for its aggression launched against the neighboring country, they only have repercussions on the territory and the Ukrainian population. The European ‘tables’ for now are saving the fact that the tap has been cut to the arrival of cereals, corn or sunflower, the basis of food. But without a certain date on the possibility of the end of an armed conflict that was initially predicted short, but has already lasted for more than three months, sectors such as agriculture already want to make plans on how to cover the lack of raw materials and demand that the European Union maintain the flexibility of the rules.
This Friday, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, Gerardo Dueñas, has raised his voice about the urgency: this situation could lead to “supply problems in a short period of time.” For this reason, it has launched its request for the European Commission to maintain the authorization in 2023 to be able to re-sow the entire area that community regulations impose that must be left fallow, as well as not having to comply with crop rotation. which also marks the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It was already transferred to the minister of the branch, Luis Planas, at the Sectorial Conference in which they coincided, in which he proposed that from Spain the European authorities be asked that next year the land that should be left can be “returned” to sow uncultivated and without the need to rotate plantations. “If we achieve that, we could compensate for this decrease in grain at some points with the sowing of others,” Dueñas pointed out.
An alert also launched on an intentional level, for example, by the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, who after a telephone conversation with Putin was very forceful: «The food crisis that is coming, and which is already present in some African countries, will have gigantic proportions and terrible humanitarian consequences.
For this exercise, the European Union decided to raise its hand on these demands. But by the time he did, once Vladimir Putin began his offensive on February 24, the possibilities of planting using the fallow land in Castilla y León – some 500,000 hectares – the farmers had “no other alternative than the few oilseeds” that could be cultivate. In fact, the CAP application data presented this campaign reflects a substantial increase in sunflower planted in the Community, which has gone from less than 300,000 hectares to more than 450,000, 50 percent more, being the crop with the largest area won.
The majority in Castilla y León, “granary” of Spain, continues to be cereal, with more than 1.9 million hectares, to which we add 121,000 of corn. In the same sense as the counselor, the president of Asaja in the Community, Donaciano Dujo, has demanded “urgently know” the agricultural regulations that will govern the next campaign. “We need to know if we can sow the fallow or if we have to rotate the crops and in what intensity. Farmers must have the conditions of crops and expenses before starting sowing. It is necessary to have a sustainable, profitable and professional agriculture. Know the deck with which we are going to play. To this day we do not know it, ”warned the leader of the agrarian organization in statements collected by Ical. And this joins a harvest that is already expected to be “bad” due to the lack of water and the heat in May that snatched the cereal and that “will not cover the very high current production costs.”
Precisely about the high prices, Gerardo Dueñas has recognized that there is “some fear” in the Ministry that he directs because “there will be little fertilizer and at an exorbitant price” during the coming months that will make the production of Castilla y León focus on crops that do not need ‘inputs’”, such as fodder or oilseeds, which do not need much fertilizer.
This campaign has already been seen. “Prudence in spending” is the main reason pointed out by Asaja yesterday when explaining the data shown by the area declared in the CAP by farmers in the Community. Some figures that, according to the agrarian organization, reveal “the meager margins in which the sector moves”, which has opted for “crops with lower production costs”, before choosing those that “could report higher sales profits” .
