Crete: request over grapes remains unanswered

The Ministry of Rural Development and Food responded to a parliamentary question from PASOK Heraklion MP F. Parasyris, who had requested emergency financial support for grape growers in the area. In essence, the Ministry’s reply states that the decision to support grape growers’ income through de minimis aid, following the recent rainfall and the summer hail that destroyed production, does not fall within the remit of either ELGA or the Ministry itself. This reply essentially refers the request to another body, without however clarifying who could ultimately take on the support requested.

In his question, the MP had documented a state of despair for raisin producers in Heraklion, describing unprecedented figures: huge quantities of unsold grapes left in producers’ hands, a sharp drop in exports, dramatic compression of producer prices and unbearable production costs eating away their income. Added to this description are the hail and rainfall that, within a single growing season, severely hit the area’s vineyards, combining two different weather phenomena against the same harvest. The accumulation of these problems, according to what the MP recorded, leaves producers facing unprecedented financial hardship.

Parasyris stresses that, instead of bold support decisions and immediate relief, the reply he received from the Ministry falls well short of the needs he has described. This position comes on top of an earlier cry of anguish from raisin producers, who had complained on September 6, 2026, that “the grapes are rotting on the vines.” The repetition of the same problem, three weeks later, shows that the issue has not yet found a substantial way out at the level of state support, despite the interventions that have taken place in the meantime at parliamentary level.

The Ministry’s reply leaves open the question of which body will ultimately take on the support of grape growers, as both ELGA and the Ministry itself disengage from the responsibility. For producers in the area, who see their harvest unsold, this development means the search for a solution is being postponed in time, while the financial pressure on their households remains undiminished. The issue is expected to occupy the MP and grape-growers’ bodies again, as the situation described in the question remains exactly the same even after the Ministry’s reply. Farmers in the area, who had already been warning since early September that the harvest risked being lost entirely, now see the official bureaucratic reply confirming their fear that no service is substantially taking responsibility for supporting them, while the problem of disposing of the production remains unsolved day after day.