The French Minister for Agriculture, Bruno LeMaire will visit peach producers in the Pyrénées-Orientales tomorrow afternoon. Fruit production and other fresh produce industries in the south of France have been hit extremely hard by the after effects of the German E.Coli crisis. The local FDSEA farmers’ union chapter has said it expects M LeMaire to make an announcement on measures to face up to the crisis, otherwise there could be "a strong reaction" from region’s exasperated producers.

Producers in the region have been carrying out direct actions including stopping trucks and destroying produce from Spain, which they believe is undercutting them, causing their margins to fall, as Spanish producers attempt to recoup their losses. The fresh produce market suffered a shock when a German minister mistakenly said Spainish cucumbers were the source of the E.Coli outbreak, sparking bans on imports from Russia and a sharp drop-off in consumer demand from within the EU. Farmers on both sides of the border say the compensation money provided by the EU after the crisis in May and June was insufficient.

M LeMarie will visit a cooperative in Ille-sur-Têt, near Perpignan in a region which produces around a third of France's peaches. FDSEA president Yves Aris told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) today, "if the minister visits these producers merely to hear the debate, without making an announcement, it will be a great disappointment."

He continued, "There will be no actions tomorrow, we have assured him that there will be total calm. However, if he has nothing concrete to announce tomorrow, it will be a great disappointment to the producers here and could result in an economic catastrophe."