The president of the Arrozúa cooperative, Francisco Peña Pérez, has denounced the situation of “uncertainty” facing the 2026 rice season —despite the water problem having been resolved— due to massive rice imports from countries such as Myanmar, India, Pakistan and Vietnam, which have “crashed the market” and generated competition he considers “totally unfair”.
Speaking to Europa Press, the president reported that “the European Union’s trade policy continues to sign agreements with Myanmar, India, Pakistan and Vietnam” and warned that Mercosur is now adding to this situation, “which further exacerbates the crisis in the sector”.
Peña stressed that “these are countries that engage in totally unfair competition against us, as they do not comply with any regulations and we have to comply with all of them because Europe is very demanding of its farmers regarding environmental standards, workers’ rights and achieving a carbon footprint of practically zero”.
He also insisted that “we have very little fungicide and insecticide to work with” whilst “they have everything”, which means that “our rice has very high production costs and theirs very low” and, consequently, “we cannot compete with imported rice”.
Similarly, the president warned that they have 60% of the rice from the previous season in storage (60 million kilos). Therefore, “we have sold only 40% of the production”. They are currently wondering where they are going to store the rice from this new season.
Peña explained that to tackle this crisis they have met with the Regional Minister of Agriculture of the Andalusian Regional Government and that they are going to set up a working group to examine “how to promote and explain to retailers, as well as to distribution chains, that people should consume a high-quality, locally sourced product”.
At the same time, the president emphasised the importance of ‘transparent’ labelling, stating that ‘you cannot pull the wool over people’s eyes and package imported rice whilst practically claiming it is domestic’. For this reason, ‘it is very important to state on the packet that it is produced, processed and distributed in Europe, in Spain or in Andalusia’.
Finally, he highlighted the environmental role of the rice sector, noting that “we are supporting the entire wildlife of Doñana. We feed thousands of flamingos, thousands of ducks and thousands of all kinds of waterfowl”.
Furthermore, he stated that they have even considered the question of “whether to plant or not to plant”, as “if this situation does not change, we will have to turn to something else, which would have serious consequences because if we do not plant, the wetlands of the rice sector in Seville or the Albufera in Valencia, for example, will be lost”. Despite the situation and the uncertainty, Peña has assured that the sector plans to start the 2026 season in mid-May and that they hope to be given a new date to meet with the Regional Ministry of Agriculture.