Blueberry market collapses in western Ukraine: poor harvest puts pressure on prices
6 October 06:18
This season, during the period of massive blueberry ripening, the markets of Lviv region were flooded with low-quality berries, which led to a significant drop in prices, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports citing EastFruit.
This observation was shared by Bohdan Bodnar, director of Organic Garden LLC, in his article for the Ukrainian Gardening magazine.
“Many producers chased the blueberry hype, planted many hectares, and then realized that they could not pull out in terms of capitalization,” he explained. “Somewhere they underfunded care, somewhere they saved money in agricultural technology, someone does not have their own refrigerator and, accordingly, proper storage. And blueberries won’t last long, and they prefer to sell them for a nominal 100 hryvnias rather than throw them away.”
According to the farmer, the non-professionals who bring down the price are small farms with minimal costs, when, for example, a family farm works on the field alone, or in extreme cases, involves 1-2 people.
“The system of care and irrigation is also very simplified, made on the knee,” Bodnar continued, “That is, the costs are much lower compared to professional plantations. The only thing that keeps the price at a certain level is the networks that do not react so sharply to price fluctuations.”
At the same time, organic is not yet a hot topic in Ukraine, the entrepreneur notes.
“The domestic market is completely skeptical about this direction. And we have a slightly better price only because we have high-quality berries,” he summarized.
