The intense plant improvement during the last three decades of this star product of Mediterranean cuisine has generated an additional 600 million to the regional field
Pioneers like Miguel Durán put the seed of tomato production in Mazarrón more than half a century ago, which made the Region of Murcia a powerhouse in its cultivation. In parallel, science has managed to increase the productivity of this unique fruit by 240% during the same period, used as a vegetable and considered a vegetable. A study by the Cerdà Institute, based in Barcelona, has just put precise numbers for the first time on the contribution that the plant improvement of this protagonist of Mediterranean cuisine has made to the country’s economy. In total, there are 12,058 million euros of additional income in the Spanish countryside between 1990 and 2018 due to the increase in yields that have been achieved by altering the anatomy of the plant or making it more resistant to biotic stresses and antibiotics. A good pinch of that amount (of at least 600 million euros) has been generated in the regional field, especially in the areas of Águilas and Mazarrón, where this crop is the star.
In total, Murcian tomato production represents 5% of that of the entire country, which gives us a clue to estimate those additional 600 million in the turnover of the regional tomato sector in the indicated period of 29 years of improvements. The figure is probably higher considering that the weight of Murcia’s activity was greater a few years ago and that here the productivity obtained is higher. In fact, Murcia is the province where the highest yield per hectare is obtained from fresh tomatoes: 119.8 tons per hectare, followed by Seville with 114.02, Almería (101.25), Alicante (97.59), Granada (90 , 52) and Badajoz (72.92), according to 2018 data from the Ministry.
In figures
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75
tonnes is extracted on an average per hectare in Spain, triple that of 1975. -
119.8
tons per hectare is obtained on average from this crop in the Region. -
800
different varieties of tomato with which one works now, compared to 20 or 25 years.
According to the calculations obtained by the Cerdà Institute, the average productivity of tomato cultivation in Spain in 2018 was 85 tons per hectare. The figure, although short with respect to the Murcian average, is notably higher than the 25 tons per hectare in 1970, adds the work of this independent foundation specialized in advising for strategic decision-making. On this occasion, the Cerdà Institute has prepared its extensive analysis on tomatoes (109 pages in total) for the National Association of Plant Breeders (Anove). According to the data managed by this organization, in the Region of Murcia, between 25% and 30% of the 295 million euros invoiced by the seed production and plant improvement sector throughout the country are obtained per year. It is about 90 million euros generated in a business that works on 47 different horticultural species, of which around 4,500 varieties have been extracted, 700 of them tomato.
The new report reveals for the first time what this improvement of seeds and plants contributes to the Spanish economy, and the result is close to 1,000 million euros in 2019. «Companies and public centers dedicated to plant improvement contributed to the Spanish economy between 1990 and 2017 with a total of 24,571 million euros “, point out those responsible for the association.
According to the president of Anove, Julián Arnedo, “only with regard to tomato cultivation, plant breeders have created almost 16,000 jobs in Spain each year during the period 1990-2017.”
For his part, Lluís Inglada, one of the authors of the report from the Cerdà Institute, explained that the investment in R & D & i made by the Spanish breeder sector in tomato cultivation was 16.7 million euros in 2019. This figure represented an average of 24.4% of the annual business volume generated by breeders in the tomato subsector in Spain ”.
What has been paid with that amount? The objectives that the tomato plant improvement has proposed have varied over the decades, although it has been especially sought to increase resistance to pests and diseases, improve adaptation to the environment and, logically, increase yields.
Anove highlights the resistance to biotic stresses, which he describes as “fundamental in increasing productivity.” In Spain, specifically, 88% of the tomato varieties now available on the market «have one or more resistances, while about 97% of tomato seedlings destined for production are resistant to one or more viruses, fungi, nematodes or bacteria ‘.
In any case, the effort of plant breeding has focused in recent years preferably on improving flavor and nutritional quality. “Genetic improvement has made it possible to obtain increasingly firm tomatoes with a longer postharvest life, thanks to the incorporation of genes that alter the ripening of the fruit.” According to the explanations of Antonio Villarroel, CEO of Anove, “genetic improvement has increased the genetic diversity of tomatoes, which has increased eightfold in the last seven decades.” Villarroel specifies that the hybrid production sector currently works with more than 800 different varieties, compared to between 20 and 25 of 15 years ago.
On the battle to change the flavor, the specialist highlights how “genetic improvement has focused since the 90s on improving the organoleptic and sensory quality of tomato, to meet consumer expectations.” In this way, “advances in science, which allow a deeper understanding of tomato genetics, are allowing the development of varieties with better flavor,” he says.
Regarding nutritional improvement, “to satisfy consumer expectations and provide healthier products”, Villarroel points out that scientific advances are allowing “a more in-depth understanding of tomato genetics”, to facilitate the development of “varieties with greater antioxidant content ». At the same time, he points out, “work is being done so that this type of improvement does not detract from the tomato yield.” The report of the Cerdà Institute also addresses the «reduction of ‘inputs’ (which are added to the product), alluding to the European strategy ‘From farm to table’ and the ‘Strategy on Biodiversity’, whose common objective is to contribute to obtaining climate neutrality with the 2050 horizon, to “evolve the current EU food system towards a more sustainable model”.
In this framework, the authors of the study assure that the vegetable improvement in tomato has given rise to new varieties that are more efficient in the absorption of nutrients. In “what refers to tomato cultivation, the breeder activity saved more than 375,000 tons of fertilizers between 2011 and 2016, a figure equivalent to 1.3% of the total fertilizers consumed in Spain during this period.”
1,715 tons of phytosanitary products have also been saved in that time (4.7% of the total in Spain); energy use has been reduced by the equivalent of the annual consumption of 6,400 homes; 15 million cubic meters of water have been saved per year; The emission into the atmosphere of an annual average of 7,200 tons of CO2 has been avoided, which is equivalent to what more than 53,000 cars emit, and it has been possible to reduce the need for land for tomato crops by about 800,000 hectares. This enormous space, equivalent to 70% of the surface of the entire Region of Murcia, would have been the necessary surface to extract the additional production that has finally allowed improvements in obtaining during the last three decades.
The muscle that still maintains a sector in decline
Tomato production is progressively decreasing in the Region of Murcia, almost a third in the last six years due to, among others, stiff competition from other geographies, such as Morocco. However, the more than 217,000 tons harvested in 2020 continue to place it as the second largest herbaceous crop in Murcia, surpassed only by lettuce, and above such outstanding products as pepper, melon, watermelon or broccoli. Now it occupies an area of almost 2,500 hectares, all irrigated and almost all under greenhouse. The Guadalentín valley hosts the bulk of that space, except for just a hundred more hectares in Campo de Cartagena and much less in the Northwest, the Mula River and the Altiplano. At the national level, Andalusia and Extremadura account for 81% of the country’s tomato production, followed by the Region of Murcia, with 5%, and then Navarra (3%). Around 16% of all national production is destined for export, in which Murcia is the second most important province, after Almería.
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