Córdoba, (EFE) the most affected province, as the vice president of the garlic sector, Miguel del Pino, has assured EFE.
This forecast could place the 400,000 to 500,000 generated by each campaign, in which between 2,000 and 3,000 people are needed, with a significant loss of labor, underlined Del Pino, who has also had an impact on the high cost per hectare of this vegetable, which rises to about 13,000 euros per hectare.
This high risk meant that at the beginning of the campaign, between the end of October and last November, the planted area was reduced by 50 percent compared to the previous one in the province of Córdoba, given the risk of not being able to count on the necessary water. for its growth, since garlic is a crop that needs little water but in very specific periods of its maturation.
The decrease in the planted area has been added, according to the business leader, by the lack of water, despite the two extraordinary risks that the planted area will receive, since one occurred in May and another probably next week.
Reduction of up to 30% of the garlic harvest
According to Del Pino, who is also vice-president of the National Garlic Table, a reduction of between 15 and 20 percent less kilos harvested can be added to half the planted area over the 30,000 to 35,000 collected last season. in the province of Córdoba, which accounts for more than 30 percent of the total area of Andalusia, the second community that produces the most in Spain.
This forecast will not be able to materialize until about twenty days before the collection is carried out throughout the summer, he specified.
In addition to having less labor for the two months of collection, which must be done in a “short period of time so that the sun does not take them away”, it will also reduce the demand for work in the warehouses that are kept open all day. year in the Santaella and Montalbán area, said Del Pino, who regretted that a harvest that “was going well” after planting due to the rains in October was cut short by the drought.
Andalusia has more than 6,000 hectares
The provisional data from the 2020 Survey on Crop Surfaces and Yields (Esyrce), prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, assigns 6,091 hectares to Andalusia, of which 5,446 are irrigated and 545 are rainfed, out of 29,963 in the national total, of which 19,376 correspond to Castilla-La Mancha.
Behind Andalusia with significant production are Castilla y León, with 2,906 hectares, and Aragón, with 1,784.
The Yearbook of Agricultural and Fisheries Statistics of the Junta de Andalucía, with data referring to 2020, figures at 5,183 hectares of garlic cultivated in the autonomous community, of which 1,750 are located in the province of Córdoba and 1,200 in that of Seville, while the rest are Granada (1,079), Málaga (710), Jaén (316), Cádiz (83), Almería (41) and Huelva (4). EFE