Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Armenia: Curtailed Apricot Crop Leaves Villagers Financially Vulnera

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Armenia: Curtailed Apricot Crop Leaves Villagers Financially Vulnera

    ARMENIA: CURTAILED APRICOT CROP LEAVES VILLAGERS FINANCIALLY VULNERABLE

    Fresh Plaza
    http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=83094#SlideFrame_1
    July 7 2011
    Netherlands

    The apricot harvest is going full steam ahead in Armenia's Armavir
    Marz. But the bumper crop predicted at the start of the year hasn't
    materialized. Large scale purchasers of the fruit also aren't pleased
    that the frequent hailstorms have damaged the appearance of the
    apricots, making them less desirable in terms of saleability. Today,
    a kilo of apricots can be purchased in the marketplace for between
    300-500 AMD. The damaged fruit is much cheaper; 80-100 AMD. Village
    growers either have to accept the depressed prices offered by the
    fruit canners and processors or else they must pit the fruit to make
    dried apricot paste and other items.

    The apricot harvest in the village of Lenough started two days ago.

    Mayor Gegham Ghazaryan told Hetq that most local residents derive a
    bulk of their revenues from apricots but that this year's hail storms
    have thrown their financial budgets out of whack. The village plans to
    harvest about 100 tons of apricots. The number would have been thrice
    as much without the damaging hail. Mayor Ghazaryan is concerned that
    many small farmers will not be able to pay back the loans they are
    straddled with. "The entire village faces a debt crisis due to the
    agricultural loans people have received from the banks. The community
    is slowly dying out." The apricot harvest is already over in the
    Armavir village of Dasht. There wasn't much to harvest.

    Constant rains wreaked havoc on the blossoming fruit trees early in
    the season. Two years ago 120 tons of apricots were harvested. This
    year's crop was only 10 tons. Dasht Mayor Hrant Petrosyan said that
    growers have had no trouble selling the fruit to resellers at 200-350
    AMD per kilo. The Armavir Regional Administration told Hetq that
    they had predicted an apricot crop of some 25,000 tons but that due
    to the inclement weather it would be several times less. Officials
    at the Department of Agriculture said they were actively working in
    hard hot communities so that growers could at least sell their fruit
    at 70-100 AMD to companies like Artfood, Byurak and Yevroterm. The
    Armavir Administration confesses that their earlier predictions for the
    grape and peach crop will also be much more than actually harvested.

Working...
X