PROCESSING TOMATO VARIETY CHOICE IN THE EBRO VALLEY

ISHS Acta Horticulturae 487: VI International Symposium on Processing Tomato & Workshop on Irrigation & Fertigation of Processing Tomato

PROCESSING TOMATO VARIETY CHOICE IN THE EBRO VALLEY

Authors:

J.I. Macua, J. Garnica, J. Merino, M. Gutiérrez

Abstract:
The processing tomato represents the most deep-rooted and traditional horticultural crop in the Ebro Valley's irrigated lands. Thanks to this, we know that in 1943 a can of whole hand-peeled valencian (salad) tomato was worth one peseta, the cans being either new or re-cut and re-used. By 1951, farmers were receiving 0.70 pts/kg and, by 1957, 1.2 pts/kg.

Since Spain's entry in the European Union, it has become one of the strongest crops in the agricultural sector, due to its being specially regulated regarding prices and contracts.

In the Ebro Valley, this crop might well be denominated a FAMILY PRODUCT because of the similarity between the sectors, both agricultural and industrial, producing it:

The sector consists of family agricultural farms and small tradional family businesses, both of low capacity.
Few young people work either on the land or in the factories.
Old agricultural structures involving a great deal of land division and old-fashioned unadvanced industries.
A wide range of crops and products in both cases (asparragus, tomato, peppers, chard, borage, etc.).
Products marketed privately.

The crop, despite not covering a large surface area, is of great agricultural and industrial importance if we consider everything involved; there are an estimated 3,300 to 3,500 tomato farmers in the Ebro Valley working 5,141 hectares and harvesting, mostly by hand, 178.000 tonnes.

The land surfaces given over to the different kinds of tomato this year proved to be quite evenly distributed between the three types: 1,621 ha. of entire pelée, 1,694 ha. of tomato for other purposes and 1,816 ha. of tomato for concentrate. This latter type has gained ground since 1995, increasing its surfaces area whilst the other two have withered in prominence (other purposes dropping slightly and pelée dramatically so). Tomato for its concentrate represents 43% of the entire Ebro Valley tomato crop, Aragón and Navarre, with 49% and 47%, respectively, being the regions where the greater part of this kind of tomato is grown.

Production this year fell by 30% in comparison with normal years: 178.319 tonnes were produced. Average yields of tomate for concentrate reached but 37.8 t/ha between 1991 and 1997.

The work presented here is the fruit of collaboration between the Autonomous Communities of Aragón, La Rioja and Navarre (Ebro Valley) over the last four years in the testing of eighty-eight tomato varieties.

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