O citizens' movement Together for the Southwest (JPS) accuses the Government of favoring multinationals producing red fruits that "destroy the Natural Park of Southwest Alentejo and Costa Vicentina" with financial benefits due to Covid-19.
Together for the Southwest's position follows the request for support made to the Government by the producers associations Lusomorango, Madrefruta and the Association of Horticulturists, Fruit Growers and Floriculturers of Odemira and Aljezur (AHSA).
In a letter, sent to the Ministry of Agriculture, and released on March 31, these three associations asked, for example, that a mechanism for withdrawing products from the market be activated, in order to adjust and regulate supply to demand, in addition to elimination of the Single Social Tax (TSU) for six months and the postponement of the payment of IRC.
The producers also asked for the referral of newly unemployed people from other sectors of activity or under a regime of lay off for the fruit sector and the return of foreign workers who already have a work contract, pledging to keep these workers in prophylactic quarantine.
The Government heard and, last Monday, April 7, published an ordinance, in Diário da República, approving the inclusion of these small fruits in a list of products that can receive financial compensation for being withdrawn from the market.
As Jornal de Negócios explains, “for every 100 kilos of fruit removed, producers receive a maximum of 40% of their market value. The maximum support given to raspberries is 309 euros per 100 kilos. The same amount of blueberries can be worth a support of 205 euros, while the production of blackberries is entitled to a support of 273 euros. Strawberries may receive a maximum aid of EUR 96 per 100 kilos'.
The fruits taken from the market will be distributed by social institutions, in an action that, for the Juntos pelo Sudoeste movement, is just “an image washing”. "They pass for benefactors without actually being ones", he accuses.
The citizens' movement says that these support measures only come to help those who “have benefited from millions of euros of European funds to install intensive crops under plastic, in the midst of PNSACV/Rede Natura 2000, destroying unique ecological values, without any kind of inspection. , causing visible environmental degradation'.
Small producers are not included, but only «multinational companies» that have also contributed to a «strong scarcity of water available in the Santa Clara dam that supplies the Irrigation Perimeter of Mira».
"They are also companies that constantly wave with high billing numbers at the expense of massive import of cheap foreign labor, without any preparation or dignity," says the same movement.
This is because these companies recruit “unprotected anonymous workers, in a precarious and vulnerable situation and whose number no one knows how to say anymore. They do not speak Portuguese, are transported in fully loaded vans, live crowded together in run-down houses without adequate hygiene conditions, not even acceptable in a "normal" period, let alone to face the necessary containment measures during the Covid-19 outbreak» .
“Now, are these the same companies now coming to undertake quarantines? Carried out exactly under what conditions and supervised by whom?”, asks Juntos pelo Sudoeste, in a statement. Moreover, in Odemira, there has already been a confirmed case of an infected farm worker with the new coronavirus.
«This is a sector that has caused an evident social disruption in the municipalities of Odemira and Aljezur, causing great shortages in terms of public services and infrastructure, without seeing any compensation for the community. If these multinationals wanted, in fact, to contribute to the solution of the crisis we are experiencing, they could not weigh even more on the State, sacrifice part of the campaign and reduce the pressure on the workforce, in order to minimize the risks to public health" , defend.
As for the economic part, they accuse, "small-fruit multinationals make a huge fuss about their economic impact on GDP and exports."
«However, they stop for a month and immediately put their LOBBY to function, claiming its needs, so that the State, with our money, will subsidize production. Who controls the mechanism for withdrawing the product from the market, the volumes involved, the limits, and even whether or not customers keep the product and pay?».
The Government, by supporting small fruit multinationals, "is diverting important funds to the communities, giving the signal that those who will pay for this crisis will be the same as always – the taxpayers."
«On the other hand, producer associations have always used the high market demand for these products, to justify the increase in production area. At this moment, what the market says is that there is no demand, that these fruits are not essential goods and that their price is high. And is it the State that is now replacing the market? For how long?” concludes the statement.
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