Should Almería (Spain) have to be worried, thinking that their tomato export is currently affected by international competition?

Abstract

In this paper, a critical view is presented concerning the internal organization of the exporting sector of AlmerA­a: the most important problem observed is that the marketing system is “atomised†and very heterogeneous. Secondly, this sector is compared with the other principal tomato suppliers of European Union (The Netherlands, Morocco and other areas of Spain): the analysis shows that AlmerA­a, in the last years, has defended its market share. Finally, the most influential variables in the commercial process are analysed by an exportation model, resulting that there are effects of substitution of the Almerian tomato for products from others origins, mostly the Netherlands.