Multiplied by 10 in one year, the price per megawatt hour makes greenhouse tomato production difficult, with an impact on selling prices.
The war in Ukraine is also affecting our tomato growers. In France, approximately 95% of the tomatoes produced locally come from above-ground production, that is to say they are grown in large gas-heated greenhouses. An artificial process making it possible to produce all year round, whatever the season, but which is debating for its ecological impact. With soaring gas prices, greenhouse production is jeopardized, forcing many producers to shift or even throw away part of their plantation. At the end of the chain, the shelves are less stocked with French products, in favor of imports from Spain or Morocco.
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The conflict in Eastern Europe was not a trigger, but it only accentuated an already difficult situation for French tomato producers. Rather stable for ten years, gas prices began to soar from the fourth quarter of 2021, stressing production for the first time. “The price has long been between 15 and 30 euros per megawatt hour. At the end of 2021, we were on average 80 euros, which was already difficult. In February, with the conflict, it rose to 220 euros, or 10 times the pricesays Christophe Rousse, president of Solarenn, a cooperative of Breton tomato producers. To sound the alarm, the latter compares this surge in prices with that of gasoline: “it’s as if diesel had gone to 15 euros per liter all of a sudden“.
Signs need to cut back on their margins.
Christophe Rousse, President of Solarenn
Even if the price of gas has fallen to stabilize around 90 euros per megawatt hour, many producers are today in the dark, forced to sell at a loss. “Without action from large retailers, we will be blocked, we would have to double the price of our products. Signs need to trim their margins», urges the president of Solarenn. These increases have a direct impact for the consumer, who could see the price per kilo double and therefore turn to imported and cheaper products.
Faced with this surge, several producers have chosen to plant only half of their plants, others have thrown away part of them. The Breton producers have in any case decided to shift their production by two months. But with more than one in two tomatoes imported, French production is in fact jeopardized. Especially since with summer and the high tomato season approaching, producers fear that the shelves will be flooded, causing prices to collapse.
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Highly criticized for its carbon footprint, greenhouse production is generally defended by producers’ cooperatives, which claim to have created virtuous systems in a closed circuit, based on the production of electricity thanks to the heat of the motors of micro-power plants and absorption of CO2 by the plants. “This system allows us temperature stability. When the tomato is not stressed by the temperature, the phytosanitary risk is almost nil“adds Christophe Rousse. The use of hydrogen could also be a solution, but “not before 10 years“, concludes the president of Solarenn.
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