"Through a motion to the full we will vindicate this issue among others as a regulation of the profit margins in each part of the distribution chain or the revision of the criteria for the distribution of subsidies and grants of the Community Agricultural Policy."
The field sector has been claiming and taking to the streets for years asking society and public administrations to promote measures to support it.
To that call, we must go from all administrations, starting with the City Council, given the weight of the primary sector in our municipality, and we must do so by fostering a social debate on a multitude of aspects related to the field: fair prices and production costs , subsidies and distribution criteria, trade barriers, climate challenge ...
Murcia's agriculture in general, and totanera in particular, present threats derived from three fundamental issues, the entry of financial capital, the scarcity of water resources and the monopoly of commercialization. Production costs, including labor With the rise of the recently established SMI, they do not represent a major threat.
This is one of the most efficient agriculture in the world and therefore both production costs (fertilization and treatments) and labor are or should be perfectly acceptable.
The entry of investment funds with extra capital is producing an increase in the scale of agricultural and livestock farms, each time they have to be larger in order to promote a larger scale of production for export purposes.
Meanwhile, some small or medium-sized companies need to increase production in order to compete with the increase in production that is being carried out by the capital from funds.
The problems in the commercialization of agricultural products are closely related to the aspects mentioned above.
On the one hand, the distribution sector is in the hands of a few, which are the large food chains that market 90% of the product.
Both the one sold nationally and especially the one that is exported.
This means that there is a demand for lower prices that greatly affects production at source, and in many cases, large companies with fund capital support take over the large distribution channels and make farmers need to work in an integrated way with these large producers (what is called "uberization" of agriculture and livestock).
The potential of totanera agriculture and livestock is being weighed down by the threats that we have outlined before. Therefore, the future of this sector is to mitigate or eliminate these threats.
From the local administration the capacity for action is minimal, but it is also necessary to contribute our grain of sand to bet on the future of this production and the well-being of our farmers and ranchers who are a very high percentage of our municipality and until the day of Today the main engine of the economy and job creation in our municipality.
For all these reasons, we will urge, through a motion, that the Government of the Nation approve a Law that sets minimum prices for agricultural products that guarantees that in no case are they lower than the cost of production, and that it promotes a regulation of profit margins. in each part of the distribution chain.
And we will also request the revision of the criteria for the distribution of subsidies and grants from the Community Agricultural Policy, as well as facilitate, in collaboration with the regional administration, the refinancing of loans from farmers and ranchers.
