Frosts damage citrus production in Argentina

The president of the Association of Citrus Producers in Bella Bista, referred to the conditions faced by the sector, mainly in the Bella Vista region, explaining that production "in field" was totally lost and citrus production is in serious danger.

Juan Carlos Achite of the Producers' Association, made reference to losses caused by intense frosts and a strong drop in the province's temperature.

He explained that the climate phenomena is perceived in the citrus plants and in the "field" cultivations that got burned. "Yesterday and today's frosts were fatal", he expressed, underlining that specially for the Summer lemon almost the whole production was lost. Even so, he said that "in the markets, this product has no price and the industry doesn't pay a dime for it, so we are just covering harvest costs and don't even dream about freight".

"Producers are desperate as plantations were quite affected by the sudden change and violent drop by the end of yesterday", he said, adding: "Fruit already burned is lost and we hope and hope that it stops dropping in July, because even the plant might be affected if it keeps going".

Source: Megalatinafm