Will the sour cherries orchards be cleared?

Throughout the country purchase prices of sour cherries for deep-freezing are staying at the level of 0.22 - 0.28 EUR/kg. It means that harvest of sour cherries is completely unprofitable. The Association of Polish Fruit Growers is organising protests.

In many regions fruit growers already stopped the harvest. Blockades of processing plants were announced. However one cannot say about well organised nationwide protest of fruit growers. Many fruit growers must pay off loans taken out last year because of crop failure.

There is also a considerable number of growers for whom production of sour cherries is completely secondary. Their sour cherries orchards are little and they are able to pick fruits with the help of family and they do not need to pay to workers. For such growers money for sour cherries delivered to purchasing centres is a simple way to the improvement in household budget. Even several dozen per cent of sour cherries delivered to the market can be picked in such small orchards. Such situation is weakening the power of protests of fruit growers for whom sour cherries production is main or even the only one bread-and-butter work. Producers more often say that they will have to clear sour cherries orchards and change the scope of production.

Source: fresh-market.pl (ms)