JLFS

Just watching a programme right now about the price of crops.....they are saying that they are getting the same price for grapes as they were 30 years ago. The old ways and the older farmers cannot have the crops picked because the labour is worth more than the product.

Cabbages and other veg is left to rot because the price they get charged for picking is too hi. 13 cents a kilo is what they get for grapes but it costs 25 cents per kilo to produce.......

So all the cheap wine has a very high price..... in real terms..

Casa Santo Estevo

We can purchase our neighbours wine for a € a bottle, with the odd one fro free. We do not grumble a the price of wine.
But the prices farmers get paid from milk though to vegetables are low all over Europe; it is a price we have pay for cheap food. Something will have to give in the end.

JLFS

Surly there is a difference between "low" and less than production costs?

HBG

Near to where I live is a road called Lemon Tree Road, full of small fincas. They’ve long stopped picking them, it’s not commercially viable.

HBG

When I first came to Spain, I was gobsmacked to find that wine was often cheaper than water. I’m not talking about wine in bottles that you have with a meal, but those fake wooden barrels in supermarkets where you can fill up plastic gallon containers for peanuts.

I suppose large parts of Spain, for climatic and soil reasons are ideal for growing vines, and Ireland is perfectly suited for growing quality potatoes, and the West Country is ideal for raising sheep, having cut down all the trees years ago.

When there is a surfeit, it doesn’t work. The sneaky Germans have sussed it out, they got rid of the cows and started making cars instead.

Dick Dasterdly

I think the main reason for the problem,(if it is a problem),has until recently been the easy availability of huge EU grants,especially here in Spain.
I'm referring to the setting up of many vast new plantations and the huge percentage of costs over the first few years that are virtually covered by grant money.
Even the leading and spreading of vast quantities of productive topsoil,where previously there was little,has been largely covered by EU subsidies.
In a sense for the bigger producers,(maybe investors is a better description),it has been a low risk venture because of the grants, even if the end prices barely cover production costs and regardless of how it goes, they still end up with a valuable long term asset from something that had little value originally.
Also note the vast areas of abandoned plantations,mostly on difficult,labour intensive and poor terrain, since these grants came into being,