SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 18. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Association of Farmers and Ranchers (ASAGA Canarias ASAJA) warns this Friday that the islands’ feed factories are in a “critical and worrying” situation due to the impossibility of importing cereals and other additives (carbonate and correctors), necessary to the elaboration of animal rations, due to the freight transport strike that is now in its fourth day on the Peninsula.
The feed manufacturers assure that, due to storage limitations on the islands, they only have a week’s worth of stock and that, if this shortage of raw materials continues, they will be forced to close immediately with the “dire” consequences. “that would bring to local livestock, their well-being, the health of animals, as well as human consumption.
Given this fact, ASAGA Canarias urges the State and the Government of the Canary Islands to take the appropriate measures, “with the greatest speed and forcefulness possible”, to unblock the exit from the peninsular ports and guarantee the supply of these supplies, which not only affects to animal nutrition, but also to human nutrition, as is already the case with products such as milk, fruit, vegetables and fish.
“Unfortunately, our high dependence on foreign countries makes the Canary Islands a more vulnerable territory, even if possible, in circumstances such as the current ones. It is not only a serious economic damage throughout the value chain, from the primary sector, industry and distribution , but it endangers our food supply”, details the president, Ángela Delgado.
ASAGA Canarias also stresses that the current scenario is beginning to be “unsustainable” for companies in the sector which, in addition to suffering from regular shortages, are suffering from rising prices of raw materials, the energy crisis and high fuel prices, which is why that the strike has been triggered.
“Demonstrating is a right, but it cannot be coupled with violent acts that paralyze minimum services. The Government has to be firm and resolve this conflict now,” he says in a note.
SUPPORT TO THE BANANA SECTOR
ASAGA Canarias supports the decision of banana producers in the Canary Islands not to harvest fruit from next week due to the blockade that distribution is experiencing on the Peninsula.
Likewise, it also demands that the Ministry of Agriculture enable the necessary safeguard measures so that the activity is not paralyzed any longer and thus avoid an economic bankruptcy of the sector.
