Tomato wars – Moroccan tomatoes at centre of a French farming storm

In the normal course of events, the most controversial thing anyone could say about the tomato is that, yes, you actually can put it in a fruit salad if you really want to, despite the famous witticism about the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Even then, we’re not talking about pineapple on pizza levels of division – or France’s long-running chocolatine / pain au chocolat spat.

But the many-varieted fruit has become a symbol of discord at the annual Paris Salon de l’Agriculture farming show, sparking a slew of articles about ‘tomato wars’.

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The reason? Morocco is the guest of honour at this year’s show – Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch joined President Emmanuel Macron to open the event on Saturday, February 22nd – and France’s farmers aren’t impressed.

They are up in arms over the imports of Moroccan fruit and vegetables, produced at lower cost and with fewer constraints than EU farmers face – and the tomato is the main target of their ire.

In 2023, France imported some 400,000 tonnes of tomatoes from Morocco, up eight percent year-on-year – an increase that marks the “loss of French agricultural sovereignty”, according to producers’ association Tomates et Concombres de France.

According to Daniel Sauvaitre, of the Interprofession Française des Fruits Et Légumes (Interfel), French producers cannot compete with “trays of Moroccan cherry tomatoes at €0.99 in supermarkets in France.”

He pointed out that labour costs for market gardeners has risen 13 percent since 2020, and called for a return to “the complementary nature of the sectors”, which existed a few years ago when tomatoes came from Morocco in winter, “when France did not produce any”, whereas “now, they come all year round”.

But the brewing row is overblown, Rachid Benali, president of the Moroccan Confederation of Agriculture and Rural Development, told AFP.

“Morocco exports its tomatoes under an agreement with the European Union, which allows a quota of 280,000 tons to be exported without customs duties. Beyond that, international trade rules apply to us as well as to others,” Benali pointed out. 

”We export our tomatoes to France, but we import many other things. We import beef from Brazil because it is cheaper to produce than here, just as we import French wheat,” because of the persistent drought affecting Morocco.

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In the case of tomatoes, what he calls “the climate cost price” comes into play: it is easier for Morocco to grow tomatoes in greenhouses than to irrigate its grain plains.

“It’s because we don’t heat the greenhouses, and we use desalinated seawater,” Benali said.

It’s not only Moroccan tomatoes that have annoyed French farmers – during the farmer protests in 2024 thousands of tonnes of tomatoes produced in Spain’s ‘plastic valley’ were dumped on the road between France and Spain.

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