The main agricultural professional organizations of the Valencian Community –AVA-ASAJA, asaja alicante yes LA UNIÓ Lauradora– And Agri-food cooperatives They have joined together to avoid the new cut that Agroseguro intends to make: the abolition of the Extension of guarantees in citrus fruit insurance. Agricultural bodies charged to the Department of Agriculture and the Insurance Insurance Consortium for “turning its back on farmers and becoming accomplices of the Agroseguro monopoly, and therefore of the private companies that control it, in the biggest attack on guarantees and rights in its 40-year history”.
The threat of a new cut to Agroseguro is closer to being realized after the ministry headed by Luis Planas “ignored the recommendations that the Directorate General of Insurance itself had prepared for the maintenance of this mechanism which guarantees the coverage of some anticipated claims in very specific conditions At the same time that the Ministry increases the subsidies to the premiums that Agroseguro collects, it becomes a necessary accomplice of Agroseguro’s cuts, instead of siding with the farmers “.
For all these reasons, agricultural organizations and cooperatives are asking the Government, which is the one that should set the guidelines of our agricultural policy and, within this, of the agricultural insurance system, the continuity of coverage that has contributed to keep farmers under insurance. Indeed, they defend the extension of the coverage of guarantees, at least, to all woody or permanent crops, as well as the recovery of other guarantees already cut, such as wind damage to quality in lemon cultivation.
LEGAL AND NECESSARY MECHANISM
Agroseguro, the Consortium and the Ministry had already attempted to abolish the extension of guarantees in citrus fruit insurance, defining it “illegal”, but before the organizations and agricultural cooperatives demonstrated that this was not the case, they had to end up recognizing that it is “a perfectly legal, necessary and the result of a simple agreement between the parties as has been the case for decades”.
“The Spanish agricultural insurance system loses. The total and absolute loss of the helm by the Ministry of Agriculture has guaranteed us an assurance that only serves as an international flag and showcase, but in which farmers and breeders believe less and less. The representatives of farmers and breeders recall that both the Ministry and the Autonomous Communities contribute around 50% of the premiums requested by Agroseguro and “have an obligation to defend an agricultural insurance system that goes on, trying to guarantee the continuity of our companies farms in the face of the various risks to which agriculture and livestock are subjected, and never allow setbacks in insurance coverage.
To this new cut they add that “we cannot allow the same insurers who want to sell us their car, house, life insurance, etc. They are the ones who want to impose cuts on the insurance coverage of our farms that are our livelihood. These companies need to know that one thing is incompatible with the other. We do not understand this desire for profit, at the expense of farmers’ efforts and public subsidies, by the private insurers that make up Agroseguro”.
