Yesterday, Daniel Bianciotti, president of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs, Producers and Nurseries owners of Strawberry from Tucuman, said, "When we are competitive, we can export to any country, and that's what we did up to 2008. Currently, we are not," said Daniel Bianciotti yesterday. Bianciotti stated that the productive sector was competing abroad in adverse conditions due to negative ratio between international prices and the high internal costs, domestic tax withholdings and import tariffs applied by different countries.
"Our costs increased in dollars. Until 2008, a crop of strawberries cost about USD $15,000 and it currently costs $ 30,000. Furthermore, the marketing chain works a dollar above the official value (yesterday, it closed at $ 8.42). The gap between the Blue and the trade is of approximately 70%. There are also deductions and taxes, but I do not know if that last point applies to Russia. All together, it's a combo that knocks us out," said the businessman.
La Gazeta consulted local producers about the current production status in face of the possibility of selling to Russia, as announced on Monday by the national Ministry of Industry.
As part of the World Food fair, held in Moscow, the Ministry of Industry announced that executives from the Russian company First Fruit Holding had expressed their desire to work with Argentine products, associated with the domestic entrepreneur Joseph Skowron. This is the major fruit importer of that nation.
The state agency, Telam, reported that day that the Minister of Industry, Debora Giorgi, highlighted the business opportunities that initiative would open for Argentina. Giorgi highlighted the opportunity of exporting berries, strawberries and other products to Russia. "The holding moves approximately $150 million dollars a year," said Telam.
According to the 2013-2014 Productive Investment Centre, Tucumán is Argentina's largest producer of frozen strawberries. According to the Local Government, strawberries and blueberries exports during 2013 amounted to 1,557 tons, i.e. USD $3 million, and accounted for 4.05% of the Tucuman's exports during this period.
"Like soybean, a commodity, it has an international price, but there aren't moments, niche opportunities during the year (supply and demand to set an external value). When working with commodity, one must be very efficient and have low costs, and we don't have them: the cost of growing strawberries doubled and international price has been stable," said Bianciotti.
The ton of industrial strawberries in the international market has fluctuated in recent days between 1,600 and 1,900 dollars, depending on its quality. "We can't cover costs at those prices," he added.
Until 2008, Tucumán was a leader in strawberry exports, as the region exported among 13,000 and 14,000 tons and had 800 hectares cultivated. Currently, the region has 320 hectares of strawberry crops. "We lost surface because of the drop in exports," stated Bianciotti. According to data, strawberry crops have decreased by about 40% in the last six years.
Source: lagaceta.com.ar