Belgian pear marketers are responding to Russia’s ban on imported European fresh produce by removing around 2,000ha of production from the market in order to protect prices, according to agriculture officials.
With harvesting of what could be a record crop already underway in the country, the Flemish government said prices were “extremely low” due to oversupply in the wake of the Russian embargo, prompting them to take action.
Under the terms of a financial support package by Flemish agriculture minister Joke Schauvliege, pear growers belonging to a recognised producer organisation can receive just under €6,500 per hectare in compensation, while non-members stand to get around half that figure.
Over the next week or so, checks will be carried out to ascertain that the produce being removed is indeed a commercially viable crop, as opposed to simply fruit that would in any case not be marketable – for example, produce damaged by adverse weather conditions.
Russia is Belgium's largest export market for pears, traditionally taking around half of the country's export crop for a value of around €100m.
This season, Belgium is expected to turn out its largest-ever pear crop at around 340,000 tonnes, 8 per cent up on last year's figure and 20 per cent higher than the average for 2011-2013.
With the September-October selling period fast approaching, Matty Veulemans of the Belgian farmers' association Boerenbond told the Wall Street Journal that growers were working hard to identify alternative markets.
