EFFECT ON PRICES OF PUBLIC INTERVENTION ON THE HORTICULTURAL MARKETS

Over the following years the setting out of solutions reaches the United States and the main developed countries of Europe (Hathaway, Johnson, Shepherd, Robinson, etc.).

In today's Common Market, the intervention mechanisms for markets of horticultural products, are to be found in Regulation (EEC) No. 1035/72 on the Common Market organisation in the fruit and vegetable sector, and in Regulation (EEC) No. 516/77 for transformed products. These mechanisms try to establish a balance between supply and demand and the greatest possible stability of prices.

Nevertheless, there are some countries which for different reasons have still not defined permanent and automatic institutional mechanisms in order to regulate their fruit and vegetables produce. This is the case of Spain.

A comparison between the market behaviour of two nearby areas, one of them with automatic intervention mechanisms and another with no institutionalized regulation, can be interesting. In order to do this, the relationships between produce and prices in the three main pear producing countries of the EEC (Italy, France and Germany) and Spain are analized.

A pluriannual arboreal crop is chosen because, in the short term, the response of producers to prices has a smaller incidence than in the case of annual crops. The increase or decrease of the surface in an annual crop is very superior, as it can be easily modified. This possibility weakens more the fluctuation of production and consequently its influence on prices. When an arboreal crop is chosen, the immediate response is greatly lessened. In the medium and long term modifications are mucho more probable.

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