The Unió Llauradora i Ramadera described yesterday as "ruinous" the current campaign of the Valencian cereal. According to his estimates, a 64% drop is expected compared to last year's production and the figures show that it will be "the worst in the last 20 years."
In general, the reduction in production is above 50% in all cereals, but in oats or triticale it has exceeded 80%. In barley, which represents more than 60% of the total cereal production, production has been close to 11,000 tons, which will represent a reduction of 57%. The second most important crop is wheat, with a production slightly above 4,000 tons and a decrease of 57%. They mainly point to drought, but also, significantly in some cases, to attacks by wildlife, especially wild boars.
The damage caused by these specimens - in some areas they have caused "serious harm" to producers, says La Unió - now dot the barley and wheat campaign as they did before in the watermelon and melon campaign. But are not the only ones.
Since the month of June, agricultural entities have been actively denouncing the damage caused to their crops by what they call "lack of control" in the wild fauna that roams in Valencian territories.
A few weeks ago, Unió itself gave as an example a field of leeks destroyed in the town of Xàtiva. The owner of the field explained then that the wild boars “destroy you so much that it is as if a tractor passed over it, all mixed up and with numerous damages. They pass so much that they have even made a path where the grass does not grow”.
Even the Valencian Association of Farmers (AVA-ASAJA) convened a few days ago the new minister of the sector, José Luis Aguirre, in a field of orange trees in Picassent to teach him in situ the effects of the presence of these animals in fields and crops. In total, AVA-ASAJA already estimates the losses that there will be this year in the Valencian Community at more than 40 million euros due to the effect of the passage of wild boars, thus exceeding the numbers of last 2022.
Aguirre, who has promised to establish aid for affected farmers, pointed out that it is necessary to "control the excess population, which is multiplying at a desperate speed." Thus he picked up the glove of the Valencian hunters, with whom he has also met recently. Aguirre met a few days ago with the president of the Hunting Federation of the Valencian Community, Lorena Martínez, who months ago led a massive demonstration in the streets of downtown Valencia against the Botànic's environmental policy in which hunters from all over Spain participated .
On that day, Martínez denounced the situation of "suffocation" suffered by Valencian hunters, who "must necessarily be in charge of balancing the wild boar populations" and also "have to pay for it." In the same march, the AVA-ASAJA farmers gave them their support because, in the opinion of its president Cristóbal Aguado, “we know that without hunters we will not be able to reduce this overpopulation. We need them".
In tune is Carles Peris, general secretary of La Unió, who points out that both wild boar, roe deer and rabbit are the species that do the most damage to crops in the Valencian Community. “That is why we ask for a comprehensive management plan for wildlife that includes, for example, exceptional hunts throughout the year to control them; and we assume that hunters are given an incentive even in those cases", Peris explains to this newspaper, whose proposal is in line with that of AVA or that of the hunters themselves, who until now made the Valencian government ugly at having to pay his own pocket the drives to rebalance the populations of wild animals. Peris insists that the animals reach urban areas and warns that "until now we have not been up to the task and we must find a solution."
