Fruit bagging is has become an expensive exercise. Let's take the apples, for example. Each bag costs about 4-5 fen, labor costs for putting a bag on one apple is about 4-6 fen, and for taking a bag off it's about 2-3 fen. Every 0.165 of an acre produces about 15,000 bags. 1 kilo is about 5 apples. The total cost of bagging per kilogram of apples is more than 0.6 yuan. 2000 yuan per 0.165 of an acre. This means that bagging is the most expensive part of the apple production, its costs are even higher than the pesticides.
Fruit bagging
Is there any point in fruit bagging if costs so much? Recently, fruit bagging technology has been widely discussed in the industry. There are two leading arguments against it:
The bagging technique was invented in Japan. However, Japanese producers have begun to abandon it. Countries with a well-developed fruit industry, for example, the United States, have come to the conclusion that it is natural for an apple to grow under the sun and it is important for normal development. The famous Washington apples grow under natural light. Other countries such as Poland, New Zealand and Italy have begun to produce fruits without bags. The quality of apples in these countries is high, more than 80% of total output belong to the highest category. They are occupying the international high-end fruit markets.
Times have changed. The workers are getting older, the smaller farms are being transferred to the larger producers. There are many disadvantages of the bagging technique that became clear during this process. The main point is that it requires too much effort. The laborers are overwhelmed with work and the costs of the bags are high. The bagged fruits have a poor taste, lower quality and are not tolerant of storage and transportation. On top of all that, the bags are harmful to the environment.
Source: iFresh