The apple producers of Moldova adjust their strategies of sales of the 2023 year harvest. A string of workshops on the season of marketing for this year apple harvest and tactics of turning to account the opportunities on market have been organized in many regions of Moldova.
With slight delays, the season of harvesting early varieties of apples started and the harvesting of late varieties would take place till November. Specialists of the Moldova Fruct Association in 2023 forecast a harvest of apples of about 548,000 tons, up by 23% YoY, but down by 4% from the average harvest in the last five years. They estimate the apples of the Idaret variety will account for 19% of the harvest forecast, Golden – 19% either, Gala – 13%, Florina – 7% and Granny Smith – 6%.
The forecast of the apples harvest is optimistic, despite the fact that during 2022-2023 about 2,000 hectares of apple orchards were cut, especially the summer varieties and the non-productive orchards; instead, 305 hectares of intensive and super-intensive apple orchards were planted. Thus, presently, the area of apple orchards is about 49.2 thousand hectares in Moldova, of which 45.8 thousand hectares are fruit-bearing orchards.
“We anticipate certain problems triggered by the climate changes characterized by extremely high air temperatures during the day and at night, lack of precipitation, frost in early spring or hail in summer. These climate deviations might delay the harvesting of apples by up to 10 days and will trigger the non-uniform colouring of fruits, their burns in orchards which are not protected with anti-hail net, small diameter of fruits,” the executive director of the Moldova Fruct Association, Iurie Fala, said.
“For 2023-2024, we recommend that Moldovan producers and exports orient themselves to the markets of the Persian Gulf in August-April, market of India for the period of December-May, Romania’s market and the local one, for the January-May period. There are possibilities to win the interest of apple consumers from the Nordic Countries, as well as the United Kingdom, taking into account their interest in the non-EU member states providers and the direct demands received on behalf of importers following the Brexit, if we put emphasis on quality, minimal level of residua, international certifications which confirm the products’ safety,” said Tatiana Burca, a marketing consultant in the USAID-funded Rural Competitiveness and Resilience Activity in Moldova Project.
The war started by Russia against Ukraine dramatically hit the export of apples from Moldova, which was focused on the eastern market. Following the exporters’ efforts and assistance of development partners, Moldova managed to make exports of about 122,000 tons of apples in the 2022-2023 season of sales (the 2022 year harvest), reducing the share of exports to the Eurasian Economic Union’s market to 80% from 99% in the 2021-2022. (Moldpres/Business World Magazine)
