Spanish farmers are frustrated by Moroccan agricultural products entering local and European markets. With their arguments exhausted, they are relying on health alerts to push the government into obstructing Moroccan imports.
Quoted by the Spanish media outlet OkDiario, Luis Cortés claims that “products without food guarantees continue to arrive from Morocco.” The union leader, linked to Vox, warns Minister Planas that without “real decrees with concrete actions” by September, they will mobilize tractors.
In statements to okdiario.com, Cortés does not assert that Spanish agricultural products receive four times more health warnings than Moroccan ones. Several months ago, Clima Informa, a project combatting misinformation in Spain, published an article questioning the credibility of an anti-Moroccan campaign in the Spanish media following a European health notification on Moroccan strawberries.
“Sanitary alerts regarding Moroccan agricultural products are neither more frequent nor more serious than usual, nor do they unfairly compete with Spanish companies,” concludes the article, adding that “reports on Moroccan agriculture contain factual information that is amplified and distorted to spread misinformation.”
The article recalls that despite media campaigns and complaints from Spanish farmers about unfair competition due to cheaper Moroccan products, the initial batch of strawberries in question was never distributed. Additionally, a subsequent widely circulated alert was later “withdrawn a few weeks later” by the RASFF alert system, which acknowledged its mistake.
Similarly, the article points out that contrary to media attention, Morocco does not lead in the number of notifications from the RASFF system. According to RASFF statistics, Turkey leads with 331 alerts, followed by India with 273, Poland 250, the Netherlands 233, France 217, the USA 193, Spain 167, Italy 151, and Egypt 130, significantly exceeding Morocco’s approximately 39 alerts.
Moreover, Morocco’s notifications concerning these products have declined sharply, unlike France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, which have seen increases between 2020 and 2023.
“Morocco’s alerts are not more numerous than those from other countries, nor are they more serious: 36% fall into this category, with another third classified as mild and the rest unspecified. By contrast, 70% of food alerts from France are categorized as serious,” notes Clima Informa’s analysis.
