This is “a disaster,” said the president of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, who this Sunday visited the watermelon farms in the Lorca district of Tercia that were destroyed by hail on Saturday afternoon. He announced that the autonomous Executive will request the state government to declare the entire area affected as a catastrophic zone, which also extends through cultivation areas of Marchena and La Hoya.
Farmers “were already having a hard time” due to the drought, the rise in production costs and the cut in the Transfer and “hail is now added to all this,” López Miras lamented after verifying the damage.
He affirmed that the Autonomous Community is going to quantify them as soon as possible, “to put all the mechanisms into operation” and to request the declaration of a catastrophic area because “it really is, all production has been lost in a very large area.” He added that “we are not going to leave the farmers alone, we are going to be with them.”
Those affected have not yet been able to quantify the losses that also affect plantations of broccoli, lettuce and trees. “This is a catastrophe, there are hundreds of thousands of hectares lost,” said the president of the Coag group in Lorca, Plácido Pérez Chuecos.
He affirmed that “there are farmers who have lost everything, they are not going to have any production this summer.” There were uninsured crops because “they were within the term” and many had not formalized their policies.
Hard, thankless, undervalued work and also always subjected to inclement weather. Yesterday in Tercia (Lorca) this farmer was desolate as his production disappeared in a few minutes. I am amazed at his serenity. These watermelons will no longer be on the shelves. pic.twitter.com/LdEX4gfzcw
— Adela Martínez-Cachá (@AdelaMCacha) May 14, 2023
The president of the Alimer cooperative, Julián Díaz, explained that watermelon production had been 15 days ahead of schedule due to the heat of recent weeks and that it was planned to start harvesting and working in the warehouses from June 1. The storm, he said, lasted 35 or 40 minutes of which only 10 or 15 were pure hail. “The hail was so intense that it raised the skin of the watermelon,” Díaz recounted.
The mayor, Diego José Mateos, who also visited the affected areas, joined the initiative to request the declaration of a catastrophic area so that farmers can receive aid.
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