"3,000 million kilos of the fruit harvest have already been lost and another 200 million kilos will follow the same path," said Elvio Ferrazza, president of the Chamber of Agricultural Producers of Villa Regina, Godoy, Chichinales and Valle Azul. The leader outlined the difficult situation of the sector given the inability to harvest the fruit because of the high costs that this entails.
Within this context, products imported from Chile are already to be found at the Central Market of Buenos Aires. As reported, a company close to the government started bringing in apples from the neighbouring country while millions of kilos of pome fruit are rotting in the south and in the province of Mendoza, waiting to be harvested.
"When we were at the central market we saw that there was fruit from Chile. If apples are being imported, it will be a shame, though I do not have sufficient information to ensure that massive volumes of apples are being shipped here. It would be a new blunder from the government," said the rural leader.
The importer Dole Nat Co (better known as "Dole"), which has its base of operations at the Central Market and is one of the few privileged with an import license for bananas from Ecuador, was the firm that bought apples to Chile.
In Rio Negro and Neuquén, for example, thousands of trees are still full of apples and pears that should have been harvested months ago, but which have ended up falling from the tree and rotting. Besides, the growers decided to harvest 25% lower volumes than expected, since their costs considerably exceeded what they could get.
"There is plenty of fruit in cold storage that cannot be sold because the sector is hit by oversupply. A lot of fruit will be lost that cannot be exported. A lot of it cannot be sold to Brazil, because they are bringing prices down and costs are very high here. That is why Brazil is buying to other countries while we are throwing ours away," added Ferrazza.
Source: rapidiario.com
