Orange producers have denounced continuing salary increases, inflation, and the import of orange concentrates, which have led them to bankruptcy.
Producers from Carabobo and Yaracuy, who are part of the National Federation of Fruit Growers (Fedenafrut), said that the increases in wages and salaries and the lack of controls on inflation, plus the import of orange concentrates promoted by the national government, are inexorably leading them to bankruptcy, they reiterated in a press release.
Production increase
Marcos Leon Guinand, the director of Fedenafrut, said that there had been a significant increase in orange production, which is over 650,000 tons of oranges a year. The increase, he said was due, among other things, to the heavy rains there had been after two dry years.
Against this background, the agricultural business sector is starting the harvest with more pain than glory, as they are paying prices that are below the cost of production, imposing severe quotas, and have even stopped receiving the fruit at the harvest's peak. Venezuela's fresh market is depressed due to the low income of its people, which makes this apparent overproduction even worse.
"There is a market for oranges and it could be enhanced if public policies were channeled towards those goals," he said, while recalling that in recent years, exports of oranges to Colombia, which have disappeared as a result of the continuous closures of borders and growing restrictions, had helped to ease their situation.
"The orange is the cheapest fruit available in the market and we have proven over and over again that we are able to cover the domestic demand and export if we are allowed to. We have sufficient evidence to believe that the national government is promoting imports of concentrated orange, regardless of the damage that would do to the country's fruit growing sector. We hope to fully verify these allegations in a very short time, so we are calling for an urgent meeting of the agricultural industry to clarify them and, if possible, boost the reception of fruit in the short term," said the director of Fedenafrut.
Source: el-carabobeno.com