The president of ACOR, Jesús Posadas, warned this Tuesday that the ban on phytosanitary products has had an impact on a lower harvest and wealth, during the visit of the Minister of Agriculture to the cooperative.
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, María González Corral; The Deputy Minister of Community Agrarian Policy and Rural Development, Jorge Llorente and the General Director of Industry and the Agri-Food Chain, Cristina Frías, together with the mayor of Olmedo, Myriam Martín, visited the ACOR facilities in Olmedo, Valladolid, this Tuesday. to find out the balance of the 2024/2025 campaign, which began last October 21, and some of the projects being carried out by the Cooperative.
In the three months of the campaign, the plant has received 878,000 tons of beets, with a richness of 16.15 and an average discount of 6.94%. Although the campaign had been dry, the rains of recent days may extend the end of the campaign to mid-February. The president of ACOR, Jesús Posadas, recognized that the current concern of the beet partner is the reduction in production per hectare that exists, with the prohibition of certain phytosanitary products that have resulted in a lower harvest and wealth.
Looking ahead to the next campaign, Posadas affirmed that the ACOR partner continues to have a guaranteed minimum income, communicated at the IV Beet Technical Conference held in Medina de Rioseco, and that it ensures its profitability, but he regretted not having enough weapons to continue growing yields per hectare in coming years. The president of the Cooperative assured that, although the price of sugar has dropped by 40 percent, ACOR has opted to reduce the income of beets by only between 6% and 9%.
In its commitment to promoting the participation of women and young people in the cooperative, the ACOR Governing Council has informed the Minister of Agriculture of the creation of ACOR Relay: Our Future, a promotion and development program for generational change, which offers multiple benefits both personally and professionally.
With the help of CEU Castilla y León Business School, participants will be trained in machinery or innovation, They will be advised on public administration or visit research centers. The presentation day will take place on February 10 at the Fuensaldaña Castle (Valladolid).
Commitment of the counselor to the sector
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, María González Corral, has highlighted the importance of beet cultivation for irrigation in Castilla y León with an area of 31,800 hectares in the current 2024-25 campaign, 30%. more than the previous campaign.
During the visit, González Corral highlighted the leading role of Castilla y León in this sector by assuming 67% of the surface and 76% of sugar production (2023-24 campaign) with four of the five factories that exist in Spain, all of them already operational after opening the reception this Monday at the Azucarera Iberia facilities in La Bañeza, León.
“Beets have added 7,400 more hectares in 2024, becoming an important reference for irrigation in Castilla y León, offering farmers a technical crop and an alternative in rotation of agricultural holdings”, stated the counselor. Of the entire surface area, the province of León stands out with 10,400 hectares, a third of the total of Castilla y León, with 3,323 hectares more.
Bet on irrigation
Promoting irrigation is essential for crops such as beets, the counselor stressed. In this regard, he recalled that only last year, the government chaired by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco has awarded works for 72 million to carry out irrigation modernization actions on 19,900 hectares. To this must be added the works to promote photovoltaic energy in irrigation communities, which contemplate 63 million to achieve more efficient irrigation at a lower cost in 92,300 hectares, 50% more than initially planned.
Irrigation also favors the incorporation of young people into the agricultural sector, specifically, six times more than dry land. In this sense, in the last call for subsidies for the incorporation of young people, resolved in October of last year, 173 young people have included beets in their rotationthat is, one in five young farmers who receive aid is committed to this crop.
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development has highlighted the public support that beet cultivation receives with the aim of maintaining the surface due to its socioeconomic importance for rural areas, “a sector that contributes to generating employment in the areas where the four factories of Castilla y León are located, such as Toro, La Bañeza, Miranda de Ebro and Olmedo”.
Specifically, between the associated aid from the first pillar of the CAP plus the agri-environmental aid for rural development, the cultivation of beet annually exceeds 20 million euros of public support from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development.
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