In the first six month of the year, regional exports of pears and apples to overseas markets amounted to 185,265 tons, i.e. 13% less than in the same period of the previous year.
The figures set a new historic low in exports of the activity, breaking the floor reached during 2016.
The volume shipped is drastically smaller than the more than 600,000 tons of fruit that were shipped to the major overseas markets in 2005. In little more than a decade, the Rio Negro and Neuquen Valley stopped exporting to this destination more than 400,000 tons of pome fruits. This volume represents a turnover of around 350 million dollars.
"Everything indicates that next year we will export less fruit than this season. We are losing farms with important levels of production and there are no replacements for those volumes," said the owner of the Tres Ases company, Gabriel Grisanti.
According to a recent report prepared by the Puerto Patagonia Norte Port Terminal, after the end of the season, pear exports this year do not reach 150,000 tons, a figure that reflects a year-on-year drop of around 13%. The same trend is observed in shipments of apples, but with much lower absolute levels: only 35,000 tons shipped.
"The reality is that this season was very hard. We are not competitive and destination prices had an adjustment that ended up further conditioning our shipments overseas. The scenario is dramatic," said Pablo Cervi, president of CAFI. "Next year things could even be worse if no financial and sanitary measures are taken to correct these trends," he added.
The primary sector's expectations haven't changed much. "We are in a critical moment and we have not receive the necessary help to be able to stop the exit of more and more producers from the system," stated the president of the Federation of Producers before getting on a plane to go meet with officials of the national government.
The activity continues its downward spiral hoping for an adjustment that nobody seems to want to take over. Unlike the previous government, the Macri administration has a very good predisposition to dialogue, but the results still don't help the region. The provinces of Rio Negro and Neuquen are totally absent, as if the problem existed in another part of the Argentine territory.
Private and public statistics confirm that this sector has been in decline for more than two decades in the region.
This year the declines in the main commercial indicators were due to the volume problems caused by the hail and the late frost recorded in the productive zones. The harvest also had serious quality problems, which ended up affecting the fresh sales of the pears and apples.
According to entrepreneurs and producers, without sufficient funds, the sector's health problems will grow exponentially over the coming months, putting the next season in check.
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