Farmers from the village of Kunicha, one of the largest export-oriented berry clusters in Moldova, hope to maintain and even expand the supply of strawberries to Romania this year. In 2022, the berry producers of this village sent almost 300 tonnes of strawberries to the Romanian market, which is about 40% of their total exports.
The cautious optimism of local farmers a month before the start of the mass harvest of strawberries from the open fields is based on two factors. The first one is that agricultural producers in the village of Kunicha have a reliable trading partner in Romania that buys a wide range of fruit from them: berries, stone fruits, and pome fruits. The second is a slight increase in the area of strawberry plantations. In the best agricultural seasons, strawberry plantations in the village reached 130 ha. But due to an unfortunate set of circumstances over several years – heavy losses from hail damage, production and commercial restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, partial loss of the Russian market, etc. – strawberry plantations decreased to 80 ha in 2022. However, the area of plantations for the 2023 harvest in Kunicha will increase to about 100 ha, if rains in April do not affect the plans. Rains and cool weather have not yet damaged strawberry plantations enough for farmers to lower the harvest forecast. But it will probably hit the market a little later than usual.
According to farmers, this is not bad. A noticeable decrease in the supply of Turkish and Greek strawberries is usually noted on the Moldovan market in mid-June, due to which sellers of local strawberries can enjoy good sales on the Moldovan market. It is relevant both for high-quality Moldovan strawberries sold on the domestic market not cheaper than export strawberries and for low-quality berries for home canning. Taking into account the illusory chances of selling Moldovan strawberries in the CIS markets in 2023, local farmers consider the domestic market as very significant, perhaps the most important.
As EastFruit reported, the exports of fresh berries from Moldova in 2022 decreased by about 50% compared to the previous year. In 2021, the exports of Moldovan berries amounted to 5 170 tonnes, and in 2022 – only 2 780 tonnes. The exports of Moldovan strawberries in 2022 decreased to 1 400 tonnes, raspberries – to 633 tonnes. However, due to a significant increase in wholesale purchase prices, the decrease in exports in monetary terms was not so large: 126 million MDL against 136 million MDL ($6.6 and $7.1 million, respectively).
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