The government delegate in Extremadura, José Luis Quintana, visited Tomalia today, one of the 14 tomato processing industries in the region. During his visit, Quintana highlighted the enormous social and economic importance of this crop in the Extremadura community, with more than 22,000 hectares planted in which almost 80% of the national production is concentrated.
The government delegate has made this visit to Santa Amalia coinciding with the beginning of the tomato harvest since the beginning of this week. The tomato is a very settled crop in Las Vegas del Guadiana and the region of Alagón and Árrago, with Extremadura being the second producing area of the European Union after Italy. Under normal production conditions, tomatoes from Extremadura account for around 5% of world production, dominated by China and the United States.
"This sector is very competitive, very advanced and one of the keys by which the tomato from Extremadura is a world reference is precisely its commitment to innovation and modernization. In addition, it is a strategic crop at the level of employment and export for the region" he said.
In this regard, Quintana has reiterated the firm commitment of the Government of Spain to the agricultural sector in Extremadura, and with special interest in those crops that are a reference for the regional economy.
He also recalled that this year some 600 tomato growers from Extremadura received EUR 2 million in aid to compensate for the difficulties caused by the drought and the war in Ukraine.
Road safety campaign
In her encounter with the media, Quintana has also recalled the importance of complying with safety standards. With a forecast that the campaign will run until the beginning of October, the Government Delegation has launched a control campaign on Extremadura’s roads this week in anticipation of more than 100,000 trips between farms and processing companies, which will mean around 1,500 daily trips. Therefore, he recalled that it is necessary to establish a control on the vehicles that carry out this transport to avoid that the loss of the load or the spill of liquid, fundamentally, can cause incidents in the traffic.
The government delegate was accompanied during his visit by Juan Puerto, president of Tomalia; Carlos Sánchez, manager of Tomalia, and the mayor of Santa Amalia, Raquel Castaño.