The table grapes are ripe. Although they've ripened well, small producers complain they have nowhere to sell them
Table grapes have already appeared in the markets, only some producers are complaining that although they have a rich harvest this year, they have nowhere to sell it. At the same time, authorities say small farmers can grow more easily and find outlets only if they set up cooperatives. In addition, the state can also subsidise the investment made by a producer group by 75 percent.
"- Ten lei per kilogram. Taste it! - But where is it from? - From Cahul! - It must be good!"
Dan Eremia from Cahul came to the wholesale market in the capital with almost a ton of table grapes. He has been working abroad for four years, but he invests all his money at home. Even though he has put a low price on the grapes, there aren't many buyers anyway. That's why he worries a lot about where he will sell his product.
"We still have about 600-700 kg, we've sold some of them, we've got 24 hours now and the grapes are already starting to lose their quality and now you'll have to pay 6-7 lei to these middlemen who just come and buy from here and go over there and sell it."
Other small producers were in the same situation, saying that year after year they face the problem of marketing their production. Even if they want to access new markets, they admit they still have to work on quality.
"10 lei and it hardly sells, very hard! We have bought fallow land and we have managed it and we have planted vines and at the moment, lo and behold, we can't sell. Since last night we've been coming here - haven't you thought about exporting to Romania, Poland, other countries? - We thought about it, but at the moment we don't have all the papers," says Victor Bortă, a wine grower.
"If you don't give it away, you have to go and throw it away, and we're going into deficit. This white pomace doesn't go for export, nobody buys it. We are so desperate that we are now having to clear all the vineyards," complains wine grower Andrei Luca.
"The costs are very high. What we have nowadays does not match the prices of the products with what we produce, we have to consider the cost of diesel, what we invest, herbicides, fungicides, there are unlimited prices", says Petru Romanciuc, wine grower.
Officials in the sector say the problem will continue as long as small producers do not understand that only by merging into producer groups will they be able to sell their products more easily and grow. Currently, the state subsidies investment by a producer group by 75 per cent.
"This means that a group of producers, one has a plantation, another has a cold room, another has a packing room, they join together and jointly make a producer group and this producer group, having invested 5 million lei, the state comes with 75 percent of this five million," says Liliana Dascaliuc, head of directorate at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry.
According to forecasts, about 110,000 tonnes of table grapes and more than 500,000 technical grapes will be harvested in our country this year.
