Morocco threatens Spain’s vegetable exports with price war

Facing increasingly constrained purchasing power, Spanish consumers tend to favor the most economical option on store shelves, at the expense of national production. On the market, a kilogram of locally grown green beans can easily reach ten euros at retail, once labor after harvest, transport, and margins of various intermediaries are added up. Although merchants attempt to defend Spanish goods by describing competing products as "coarser," "somewhat tougher," and having "less flavor," budgetary reality invariably dictates the purchase decision.

On Bladi.net : Watermelons, avocados: Morocco shakes up Spanish producers, and not everyone is happy about it

This price gap is mainly explained by labor costs, a competitiveness asymmetry exposed by a professional and reported by El Debate. The salary cost to harvest a single kilogram of green beans amounts to four euros in Spain, compared to barely one euro in Morocco. This aggressive competition does not come from other European countries, but specifically strikes Iberian producers on key commodities such as tomatoes, watermelons, oranges, strawberries, and avocados.

On Bladi.net : Tomato War: Spain Challenges Morocco Over EU Imports

To try to preserve a sector that ranks fourth in Europe, the industry is urgently demanding the establishment of fair rules of the game. The main requirement is to impose the same health and quality controls on imported goods as those undergone by Spanish harvests. Adopting a fundamentally defensive stance to protect local emblems like Canary Islands bananas, sector players stress the need to save their agriculture, repeatedly insisting that "Spain is Europe’s vegetable garden."