Argentine blueberries lose ground due to lack of competitiveness
Argentine blueberries lose ground due to lack of competitiveness and 2016 produced only 17 thousand tons of this fruit in Argentina, according to a report.
«Although there was a record in the export volume, there were no good economic results. From the Argentine Committee of Blueberries is asked to work on labor costs, production and logistics to gain competitiveness«, indicated Sofía Espejo for the Agrofy News site.
According to the last census of the 2016, in Argentina the production of blueberries has 2750 hectares, distributed in the northwest (1300), northeast (1050) and some 400 in the province of Buenos Aires.
The sector ended the year with record production and exports, in general terms it ended with its accounts in the red: «This year it ended up selling at 25% less than last year's price«said the author of the report.
«This paradoxical situation is due to the fact that the main competition that emerged a few years ago, Peru, has the ability to produce blueberries at the same time as Argentina at a much lower cost"He added.
While, "production costs in Peru are notoriously lower than those of our country"said Carlos Stabile, president of the Argentine Blueberry Committee (ABC), a non-profit civil association that brings together producers, exporters and regional chambers of blueberries in Argentina.
Peru started later than Argentina in the blueberry business, but last year it already surpassed it in production volume.
«We arrived at 17 a thousand tons and they 25 thousand tons, when two years ago they produced only 2 thousand. As for the results of that sale were the worst and many companies not only did not win but they lost money"said Stabile.
He added: «The state of the industry is quite worrying. The last harvest was the worst in the history of this crop in Argentina. Fundamentally for commercial reasons, they have hit us because of the lack of competitiveness we have compared to other countries«.
The president of ABC argued that the objective is to recover competitiveness and for that you need to gain in productivity and efficiency.
«There are many things we can do: work on labor, production and logistics costs. There are also other issues that we are talking with the Government that has to do with the whole tax policy and social charges being reviewed, punctually reduce the tax on labor that is much higher than that of other countries and take away our competitiveness"He specified.
Another point in this regard has to do with the resolution recently approved by the National Agrarian Labor Commission (CNTA), which reduces the working conditions for blueberry harvesters to 25 kilos per day.
«From the Chamber we had no voice or vote on that regulation and we could not negotiate. We believe that a floor was set for the variable salary, above the minimum and mandatory wage, on a performance that is quite low and with which we can not compete with other countries«, He said.
He noted that "they do not have a collective bargaining agreement that enables them to directly negotiate producers with the guild and we have to rely on third parties that do not represent us or the industry's knowledge, that is why they end up committing these irresponsibility«.
Argentina exports an 65% of its production to the United States, but in the Chamber they do not fear that the blueberry trade may suffer the same fate as that of lemons (suspended) because there is no problem of competition with the American producer of the blueberries
Source: Economia.terra.com.ar
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