Spanish Tomato Supply Threatened as Mite Outbreak Adds to Heatwave Challenges

A mite outbreak in Spain’s Extremadura region threatens to severely inhibit tomato crop volumes, compounding climate challenges already hitting the 2026 European processing tomato season. Industry analysis suggests up to 30% of the crop in Extremadura could be lost.

Extremadura accounts for close to three-quarters of Spain’s total processing tomato production, making it a significant contributor to European supply.

Sources suggest that climatic conditions have driven the mite outbreak, following sustained periods of hot and dry weather. However, some industry participants suggest that regulatory requirements are also to blame. According to Tomato News, “While climate conditions enabled the outbreak, industry leaders agree that the severity of the damage stems directly from a sudden regulatory shift: the prohibition of Movento, a spirotetramat-based insecticide that growers previously relied on as a single-application safeguard.”

Both Italy and Portugal, Spain’s principal EU competitors in processing tomatoes, have authorized a miticide treatment that Spain has not. As such, growers in Extremadura are managing an active outbreak with a narrower toolkit than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.

Extremadura was already under pressure from successive heatwaves that had raised concerns about mid- and late-season output. Indeed, the high temperatures and drought conditions that hit much of the region in the summer have become the key watch-out factor for market participants. The outlook varies between countries, but sources anticipate that Spain fared worse than several of its regional peers.

At the end of August, the World Processing Tomato Council (WPTC) revised its forecast for Spain’s production downward compared with its mid-August forecast, but notes that yields currently remain hard to quantify, as the scale of the damage caused by the mite infestation and the heatwave events is yet to be fully determined.