Farmers are complaining about issues with crop sales. Tigran Matevosyan, a farmer from the village of Armash, told Panorama.am that several years ago he took out a loan and established an orchard. He grows apricots, plums, mulberries, apples, and grapes. However, this year he is facing challenges in selling his harvest.
“This year, the income has been very low, a hundred times less than last year. If only they would cover the costs of irrigation and orchard maintenance, I would be grateful. As for income, it is already excluded for maintaining the household. Initially, when the apricots were not ripe, our friends were interested in taking apricots, but later, when the apricots ripened, I can say frankly, they sold for 450 drams per kilogram. After the 'Shalakh' variety, there were other varieties of apricots, I tried to sell them in Yerevan, but they sold very poorly. I brought back about 80% of my harvest. In Yerevan, I sold the apricots for 300 drams per kilogram,” said Matevosyan.
When we asked Matevosyan what caused the sharp decline in harvest compared to last year, he replied, “The decline in harvest was mainly due to weather conditions. Initially, the climate was humid for a long time, there was no pollination, and bees were not active. Then in certain areas, hail also struck, resulting in a very low harvest. Mainly, due to excessive humidity, the plants were not pollinated, and there was no harvest. It is true that there are places where the harvest was good, but that is, say, a very small part.”
One of the reasons for poor sales is also the export ban. “Everyone knows well, don’t make formalities, if there is no market, the harvest is not exported normally. They are trying to export to Europe through alternative routes. To export to Europe, they first need to open that market for us, bring in trucks, stop them, determine the price, and then start resolving some issues with Russia. Russia also punished in its own way, and already, as they say, ‘they don’t want to get involved,’ that’s the situation,” noted Matevosyan.
The farmer is also concerned about the sale of the next harvest of black plums. “Soon the black plums will ripen. Black plums are very difficult to sell, they also do not have a good price. Farmers have many problems, mainly related to expenses,” he said.
There is also no state support. Today, the farmer is alone with his problems. “I have not heard from any farmer that there is state support. They say they support their exporters to export. We have not benefited from state support and have not even heard of it,” he added.
And in the summer heat, work in the orchard does not stop, nor do the expenses. According to Matevosyan, they will have expenses until the end of the year. “The orchard needs to be irrigated and maintained. It’s not that we gathered the harvest, and the trees will just stay like that. The trees need care all year round, the orchard needs processing, these are expenses we have to incur,” he added.
As they say, hail strikes where it has already been damaged. Matevosyan also noted that crows are circling the orchards and ruining the entire harvest.
