Portugal: normal difficulties for the start of the season

According to the AIT association, representing the Portuguese tomato processing industry, the 2024 tomato season is to be launched in August, with a small proportion of fruit damaged by the weather and, much like in other sectors, some recruitment difficulties. The AIT association includes five members and seven factories, representing around 70% of national production.
"Up to now, preparations for the season have not been perfectly smooth. The weather difficulties obviously had some consequences. It's been an atypical year (see related articles below) and I don't know if we can say how this will turn out in the future," said AIT General Secretary Miguel Cambezes in an interview with Portuguese news agency Lusa.

During the fruit-forming period, the rain had a negative impact, which cannot yet be fully assessed. Added to this, temperatures have been below those traditionally recorded in Portugal during this period, leading to a "perfect cocktail" that has affected some of the crops. However, without any "aggravating climatic events ", it is possible that this campaign will see normal quality crops.

The impact of climate change on the tomato sector is very clear, for example in terms of the length of the season itself, which has dropped from around 90 days to a maximum of 60 days. To mitigate these impacts, as AIT points out, growers are becoming increasingly specialized, and sometimes even use innovative technologies to optimize crop management. However, it is still not possible to carry out interventions "instantaneously".

 Miguel Cambezes also points out that today's processing tomato harvest is almost entirely mechanized, but that labor is still needed, at a time when recruitment difficulties are increasingly common in many sectors. "As manufacturers, we recruit a large number of employees for the season, who were obviously easier to find in the past when we called on students on vacation, many of whom wanted to work in the factories, take training courses and boost their incomes. Today, the situation is less straightforward, but I think the difficulties are comparable to those that exist in the most diverse sectors," he stated. Without making any value judgments, as Mr. Cambezes pointed out, these difficulties are linked to the "new attitudes" that people have adopted in relation to work, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. 

AIT maintains that the processing tomato industry must adapt to this new reality, even if existing scenarios are impractical, such as the four-day working week. "During the campaign, we work seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It's a sector that won't accept human resources management that doesn't involve full utilization and maximization of resources. During the campaign, we may only stop to clean and maintain the equipment," he explained.

In the municipality of Águas de Moura alone, in the Setúbal region, Eurofirms, a Spanish multinational human resources management company, has launched an operation to fill 350 positions available as part of the tomato processing season within the HIT Group. Vacancies range from unloading trucks to filling barrels, as well as supplying the processing lines, and visually inspecting and sorting tomatoes. Questioned by Lusa, the company stated that the number of positions on offer was "identical to last year", and that it hoped to fill all the positions required for this season.

Sources: apo.pt, msn.com