In a report released in late March, the U.S. International Trade Commission announced that fresh, chilled, or frozen blueberries are not imported into the United States in such increased quantities that they could be a significant cause of serious injury or threat to a domestic industry producing a similar or imported product, said for Nova.rs Dr. Aleksandar Leposavic, one of the most famous experts for berries from Cacak. According to him, the investigation on this issue was launched in September last year, after receiving the request of the trade representative of the United States.
“The interested party in this procedure was the American Blueberry Growers Association in support of protective measures. They were opposed by the Coalition of Blueberries for Health and Progress, which consists of American producers, distributors, buyers and foreign suppliers, Aneberries, which represents the majority of producers and exporters of blueberries from Mexico, and Chileanimentos, which represents producers and exporters of blueberries from Chile. Five foreign governments (Argentina, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Peru) along with line ministers and ambassadors, along with lawyers, also participated in the investigation. The Government of Argentina submitted a submission and gave a statement at the hearing, while the Government of Canada participated in the procedure with a large number of actors, the most important of which are blueberry producers from British Columbia,” said Leposavic.
According to him, the fear of American producers and the increased production of blueberries in South America and other parts of the world was the reason for initiating an investigation into the impact of imported fruits of this fruit on domestic production. The multi-month investigation, he points out, started in September and included several public hearings and announcements in October last year, and in January and February this year, it resulted in a written document of the American Commission for International Trade issued in March this year.
“It elaborates on the statements of all participants, enumerates threats to domestic production with a particularly pronounced impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the reduction of orders due to the closure of restaurants, schools and resorts, which, according to one producer, caused 25% of the blueberry market to disappear. The problem of closing certain processing and finishing capacities due to the infection of workers in them, the impossibility of organizing the harvest, increasing sales via the Internet and changing the way of shopping because customers bought less fresh products during the pandemic due to the desire to pick fresh fruit directly from the shelves of trade facilities,” says Dr. Leposavic for Nova.rs.
After hearing the arguments of the opposing parties, he continues his presentation, as well as a comprehensive analysis of domestic production, imported quantities, consumer habits and marketing methods for this fruit.
“It is also interesting that the Republic of Serbia appears as an exporter, primarily of frozen blueberries, from which 116 tons of frozen blueberries were exported to America in 2016, 115 tons next year, only one ton in 2018, 29 tons in 2019 and 29 tons in 2020. The table also shows the fact that in 2020, after the export of blueberries to America, we were surpassed by suppliers from Montenegro with 70 tons of exported fruits,” specified Dr. Leposavic.
We asked him how such and similar events can affect the production and marketing of blueberry fruits from our country, because he presented the content of previous documents.
“Blueberry production in our country has experienced great expansion in the past ten years. From only 3-4 hectares of extensive and semi-intensive plantations in the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century, this plant is now grown in our country on about 3 thousand hectares. In the production of blueberries, we have in a short time surpassed the competition in which this plant has been grown incomparably for many years. We have surpassed them in the applied technology, yield and what is especially important and what customers especially insist on, and that is the quality of fruits produced in our country. Of course, there are negative examples, but the production of blueberries in Serbia has a positive trend for now. In order for this trend to remain, it is necessary to maintain and improve the achieved quality, but also to invest significantly more in product development and marketing. Events such as attempts to protect the domestic production of American producers are certainly a warning that state institutions, producer associations and exporters must be involved in production and marketing, because they all have an interest in unhindered placement on a certain market. The fact that the governments of five countries that export blueberries to that country participated in the dispute before the American Commission on International Trade indicate the seriousness of the approach and protection of their producers and exporters, in which they succeeded this time. Each of them appeared before the commission with arguments and with plenty of documentation on market conditions of sale, deficit of fruits on the American market by months, impact and benefit of consumption on consumer health, especially proven during the coronavirus pandemic because blueberries, raspberries and other,” he explained.
As he emphasized, such events are a warning to both producers and exporters of other fruits. Leposavic notes that in our country we treat raspberries, the national fruit species, quite irresponsibly, where the overall situation is currently in the hands of our producers and some exporters. He says that it is the result of favorable trends and an increase in demand on the world market, where there is currently a deficit of goods.
Our interlocutor points out that this situation can in no way be attributed to some of the very present actors in our country, and those are individual producers or self-proclaimed representatives of the association of raspberry producers or refrigerators. Unfortunately, that is not the result of certain government bodies and working groups formed during 2018 and 2019, he estimates.
“The purpose of the existence of such bodies should be to work on solving the accumulated problems in raspberry growing in Serbia, but they have an incompetent professional and unrepresentative composition of representatives of producers and processors. This is not a good way and does not represent a guarantee for the stabilization of raspberry production, in which over 30 thousand employees are engaged in our country every day, and over 120 thousand people during the harvest,” states the prominent expert.
These days, Chileans are finishing the harvest of the second kind of raspberry, which represents about 70 percent of the total harvest in this country, and according to Dr. Aleksandar Leposavic, their total production this year will not exceed 30,000 tons, Nova reports.
