ARCHIVED - Major Águilas agriculture company finally enters liquidation

Agrasa has been one of the leading employers in Águilas for decades

Agrícola Aguileña SA, one of the most important agricultural concerns in the municipality of Águilas for many years, has been unable to overcome the financial difficulties which were made public late last year and has entered liquidation.

In November 2019 the company, better known as Agrasa, informed its 481 employees that they were facing redundancy, sparking a strike which lasted for weeks as workers demanded the payment of outstanding wages and salaries, and the confirmation of liquidation proceedings this week hardly comes as a surprise. Agrasa’s accumulated losses amount to 15 million euros, and in 2018 the turnover of 23.1 million euros was not enough to avoid further losses of 2.2 million euros, according to the official accounts.

Most of the staff laid off as a result of operations ceasing are reported to women, some of whom have been employed by the company for over 30 years.

Agrícola Aguileña SA was founded in 1977, and by 1984 had begun to export tomatoes all over Europe, branching out into lettuce in 1986. As the business continued to grow a 1-cubic-hectometer water deposit was completed in 1999, to which solar power panels were added in 2008.

The area occupied by the company comes to 42,000 square metres plus 34,000 m2 of seed plantations, and the refrigerated storage capacity amounts to 7,500 m3.

Unfortunately, this is far from being an isolated case of companies in the agricultural sector in Murcia facing difficulties in recent months. Problems which already existed in the sector were exacerbated by the flooding in September, December and January, and were partly to blame for the sharp increase in unemployment in Murcia at the end of last year.

Among the companies forced out of business have been Agroherni in Las Palas and El Niño del Campo in Lorca, both of which have entered official insolvency proceedings recently, while others in similar situations include Agromem in Alhama de Murcia, Gasolenor in Calasparra and Campos y Serrano in Mazarrón.

The list has been added to this week by the news that Ager Cult, in Ceutí, has also been placed in the hands of an administrator with debts of 650,000 euros after turnover fell by 35 per cent in 2018 to 2.7 million euros, and it seems clear that one of the key pillars of the regional economy of Murcia is facing severe difficulties.

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