At the end of last week, rain and hail hit the north of Moldova. The agricultural lands of the Soldanesti region have suffered the most from the hail. Hailstones, which reached the size of a pigeon’s egg, seriously damaged tens of hectares of fruit orchards in some villages of the region.
However, experts from insurance companies argue that there are few cases of requests from farmers to conduct surveys of hail-damaged orchards and record the damage. Insurance contracts for farmland in 2021 increased by 20-40% on average, compared to the previous year, according to insurance companies. Moreover, insurance contracts for perennial plantations against spring frosts and hail constituted the main part of the new insurances.
Employees of insurance companies assume that hail has mostly damaged the small farms which do not use insurances. In addition, it was mainly the leaf apparatus that suffered from the hail, and not the fruit which in most cases is not yet formed due to the cold weather. Moreover, experts in this regard note that such mechanical damage to fruit trees, as shown by the consequences of the April 2017 snowstorm, can have a paradoxical effect: somewhat reduce the amount of harvest, but significantly increase the quality (size) of the remaining fruits.
Also, insurers claim that the damage to farms by late spring frosts is significantly lower than in 2020. These spring frosts have damaged only some apricot and peach orchards, and to an even lesser extent, cherry orchards. At the same time, the frosts practically did not affect apple and plum plantations.
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