The Spanish Orange and Mandarin Interprofessional, Intercitrus, affirms the total failure of the control plan implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture to fight against the Cotonet pest imported from South Africa and asks it to inform the sector of the roadmap that is going to be carried out for the following harvests, since the 2021-2022 harvest is already considered lost. Intercitrus is also going to request responsibility and compensation for farmers whose citrus fruit has been affected and cannot be marketed, who are going to suffer heavy economic losses and an increase in their production costs due to a pest from a country outside our Community borders.
Spanish citrus growers are already paying the price for the consequences of the trade treaties signed by the EU with the rest of the world and the lack of efficiency in terms of surveillance and phytosanitary controls in the ports of entry into Europe, which have led to the uncontrolled arrival of products from third countries, where their production protocols are not governed by the same strict phytosanitary and environmental regulations as in Europe. One of the most serious cases affects our citrus and it is called Cotonet, a pest imported from South Africa, in the form of a mealy bug, which is spreading like wildfire and causing serious deformations in the fruit, preventing it from being marketed. The dreaded Cotonet from South Africa arrived in Spain in 2009 and, since then, it has advanced without control, spreading throughout the Valencian Community, where it is present and has caused damage in 80 municipalities: 30 in Castellón, 45 in Valencia and 5 in Alicante.
At this point, Intercitrus considers that it is a reality that the control plan implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture to control the South African Cotonet has been a failure, as the pest, far from showing containment or retreat, has continued to spread throughout the Valencian Community and cases are now known in Andalucía, Murcia and Cataluña.
“We have a control plan that has failed and proved to be totally ineffective. The question is, what now? The truth is that the next season for many citrus growers is already lost, but we need to know the roadmap for the following harvests and how we are going to prepare for the one that is coming. We need answers from the Administration, to tell us what we are telling our farmers now, how they have to act, when they are being affected by an imported pest, where they do not have to bear unnecessary costs and, furthermore, they are not being provided with effective tools to contain it. In short, we want to know what the Administration’s strategy is for controlling this disaster”, denounces the president of Intercitrus, Ramón Espinosa.
With regard to the control protocol established by the Valencian regional administration, Intercitrus regrets the lack of information on some processes, as well as a greater investment and the fact, no less important, that it has arrived late and badly, as has happened with the management of traps by this organism. Firstly, the management of the traps that should have been provided to farmers was not good and did not arrive in time or in sufficient quantity for a control strategy that could have reduced the population. Likewise, within the protocol established by the Ministry of Agriculture, there is a total lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of some of its tools. For example, we do not know if the fight with auxiliary fauna, with the release in 2019 of a parasitoid such as Anagyrus aberiae, has had any results. Along the same lines, we also do not know how the predator Cryptolaemus has acted, which has the disadvantage that it acts in summer, when the damage to the Cotonet is already present, but it serves to reduce the population for the following year, an interesting strategy, but for which there is not enough public investment. Apart from this, we have a major problem with ants because they protect the Cotonet and we have no phytosanitary tools to control them.
Likewise, the president of Intercitrus also refers, within the failed strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture to stop this imported pest, to the ineffectiveness of the phytosanitary products used, which have not been as effective as methylchlorpyrifos, which was not authorised by the EU a year ago. “What is clear is that the active substances are not working. We don’t know if it is because they are not effective, because they are not being used at the right levels, because the dose is not correct, because the application system fails…. Chemical control is not working, so it would be necessary to investigate what more active ingredients are available, although at the moment they are not authorised for citrus, but they could work on the basis of tests and they could be authorised”, Espinosa explains.
In addition, the Spanish orange and mandarin Interprofessional is going to apply for compensation aid for farmers whose citrus fruit has been affected and who are unable to market their harvest, as there are already cooperatives that have warned their members that they will not harvest the affected plots.
“Once again, it has been demonstrated that European ports of entry for citrus are true sinks for pests and material treated with substances harmful to consumer health and the environment. This lax control system has led to the arrival of pests such as Cotonet, which affects citrus fruit. This is why we understand that there are people responsible and accountable and that this damage has to be paid for in some way by whoever is responsible”, Espinosa states, who also once again demands that in order to protect our crops against this and other pests the implementation of cold treatments for all citrus coming from outside the EU borders”.
