Constantin Furculita, apple producer in Moldova says that “we found ourselves from one day to the next under the embargo with harvest in the fields”. The 35 year old, who has invested about 2 million dollars in a 42 hectare orchard, explains that “until 2014, 99% of my production was destined for the Russian market”.
Moscow enforced an embargo on Moldovan fruit and canned goods after Chisinau signed an agreement with the EU. The result : “income hardly covers expenses, and farming already doesn’t bring in a lot of money”. Tens of thousands of tons of apples rotted in the fields of this country, which is the poorest in Europe, small farmers do not have the means to stock the fruit.
Local money lost about 30% in value and has increased the cost of bank loans and the cost of phytosanitary product imports. To make up for their losses, many farmers have tried to target other markets. Whilst the free trade agreement since September within the EU has opened up opportunities, “entering into the European market is difficult, slow” regrets Alexandru Slusari, President of the association UniAgroProtect.
Out of their 400,000 ton annual apple production, Moldova only exports 4,000 tons to the EU, mainly to Romania. In an unexpected gesture, at the end of February, Moscow “exceptionally” lifted the embargo for 10 Moldovan apple exporters. According to the Vice Minister of Agriculture, Vlad Loghin, ten or so lorries with 200 tons of goods were sent to Russia. Before the embargo, the Russian market took in up to 200,000 tons per year.
But the Russian consumer has not been completely deprived of Moldovan fruit, Mr Slusari explains that “We know very well that most of what we send to Bélarus and Kazakhstan in fact ends up in Russia”. However this implies extra transportation costs and prices 30% lower than exports to Moscow before, which had no intermediary.
“Without support from the State, a large part of the orchards will die” predicts Mr Slusari. At the end of March, thousands of farmers demonstrated all over Moldova demanding that funds for the sector be doubled in 2015, to €60 million. Mr Furculita thinks that the State should do more for agriculture, which he believes is “the only branch of the economy that could see profit”.
The disaster created by the Russian embargo has underlined the urgency to diversify the markets. Thirty or so kilometres from the capital in Bucovat, Ion Chilianu has set up a farm with packaging chains and modern cold rooms. Apples are sorted by colour and size and exported to Libya, Egypt and Kazakhstan. He has also looked for opportunities to export to the EU, but says that ‘European bureaucracy blocked” his efforts. “We Moldovans have always been at a crossroads between conflicting interests and have always suffered. It is our fate” he resigns.