Demand urgent solutions for crisis affecting Douro Demarcated Region
A delegation of winegrowers and association leaders will travel to Lisbon tomorrow (Wednesday) to demand “urgent solutions” from the Prime Minister for the crisis affecting the Douro Demarcated Region.
The delegation will gather in front of parliament and then proceed to the Prime Minister’s official residence in São Bento.
Complaints and warnings are mounting across the region from producers who fear they will not be able to sell their grapes this season or will have to sell them at low prices – while traders complain of full stocks and falling wine sales.
The aim of the initiative in Lisbon is to deliver the motion approved on July 2, in Peso da Régua, district of Vila Real, the day on which a demonstration took place to raise awareness of the growing difficulties affecting winegrowers and the Douro Demarcated Region (RDD).
“If the struggle of the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA) and the Douro winegrowers has already begun to bear fruit, by forcing the government to admit that there is a problem in the Douro and to announce measures, we cannot fail to insist that the desperate situation of the Douro’s small and medium-sized producers requires more far-reaching measures,” said the CNA in a statement.
In Régua, attention was drawn to the fact that producers still sell at prices unchanged for 25 years, when all production costs have increased dramatically in the meantime.
The motion approved vehemently rejected the idea that subsidies for 2025, which will be set by the government on Friday, could be lower than those of 2024.
Since then, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Sea has announced an action plan for the “sustainable management and valorisation of the Douro Demarcated Region”, which should be ready in August. The harvest begins in August and culminates in September.
Source material: LUSA
