Europe’s Pears Rot as Putin Retaliation Pushes Down Price
By Whitney McFerron Sep 5, 2014 8:10 AM ET
Bas Feijtel has a bumper crop of pears and no place to sell them all, so he’s leaving a quarter of them to rot.
That’s because the price he gets for his pears plunged 70 percent from last year after Russia’s food import ban, and the grower in Wemeldinge, Netherlands, says it’s cheaper not to harvest any but the most perfect fruit.
“When the problems started from Russia, there was panic,” said Feijtel, 47, who plans to harvest his highest quality pears while leaving behind the fruit with bumps or bruises that usually command a lower price. “It was a very bad moment for us because it was one week before we started picking, and we couldn’t change our plans. People were coming to pick the pears and storage was arranged.”
Russia, the biggest buyer of European pears, last month banned an array of food imports from the European Union, U.S. and other countries that supported sanctions against it over conflicts in Ukraine. The restrictions pushed prices lower for everything from Spanish peaches to Latvian cabbage to Finnish dairy products, according to Brussels-based farm lobby Copa-Cogeca.
Support Measures
In the wake of the Russian ban, the EU announced support measures for fruit and vegetable producers worth 125 million euros ($162 million), which include payments for non-harvesting of crops and for free distribution of fruit to charities, hospitals or schools. About 82 million euros of the total will be allotted to apple and pear producers, said Roger Waite, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s administrative arm.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-04/europe-s-pears-rot-as-putin-retaliation-pushes-down-price.html