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Rabat – A video documenting a group of Spanish farmers damaging batches of Moroccan tomato exports to Spain has gone viral online.
The videos capture Spanish farmers aggressively hurling tomato boxes sourced from the North African country that were loaded on a truck.
The act comes as part of protests against Morocco’s escalating product exports to Spain.
For years, European tomato suppliers from different EU countries have been renewing their concerns about the growth in Morocco’s tomato exports.
The suppliers echoed concerns frequently, including in 2023 during a meeting for the Tomato Contact Group, a community of European tomato suppliers and farmers.
“The uncontrolled growth of tomato imports from Morocco and the Community’s policies regarding plant health and packaging, derived from the Farm to Table strategy, threaten Community tomato production,” agriculture-focused website FreshPlaza quoted the group as saying.
That was not the first time suppliers shared similar concerns.
In 2021, a group of producers expressed similar concerns, stressing that Morocco’s products pose a threat to the “competitiveness” of European-produced products.
Data from September 2023 shows that Morocco’s tomato exports to foreign markets reached 716,700 tonnes in the 2022-2023 market year.
The data for the agriculture-focused website East Fruit said the exports helped Morocco generate revenues of $990 million.
“Over five years, the volume of tomato exports from Morocco has increased by more than 25%,” the report noted, adding that, “over a decade, the country has shown the fastest growth rates among the largest exporters of these vegetables.”
Growth in exports, including tomatoes, has been causing concerns among local Moroccans, as the increase has caused price increases in commodities, weighing down citizen’s purchasing power.
