Fedefruta regrets losses of up to 80% in early cherry harvests

The president of the Federation of Fruit Producers of Chile (Fedefruta), Jorge Valenzuela, warned this Monday that Chile faces losses of around 50 percent in the early harvests of cherries, a sweet red fruit that pushes shipments of fresh Chilean fruit to the world.
According to the union, this percentage of damage is recorded in the early harvests that have been carried out in the O'Higgins Region, while the situation worsens further south: in Maule, for example, there are sectors that reach 80 percent.
"We have had important effects this season: first, the little cold that affected flowering and fruit set in the early varieties, and later two rains that undoubtedly affected in terms of fruit splitting," Valenzuela warned Cooperativa.
Faced with this, the representative of Fedefruta explained that "ending the early fruit of week 47, we are seeing effects and losses of at least 50 percent, and in areas reported in Curicó of up to 60 and 80 percent loss." ».
"Now that December begins, the cherry harvest in the different regions of our country increases exponentially," said the union leader, who also called on producers to remember that "the most important thing is to maintain our quality and be consistent, "That is the prestige that we have maintained and we want to maintain over time."
"We had a complex season and now an exponential harvest is coming, let's maintain the quality," he concluded.
Fedefruta also realized that it is necessary not to forget other items that are equally important for agricultural regions and that also face effects from the rains, among them the future harvests of table grapes in the central zone and also blueberries from Maule to the South.
It should be remembered that cherries are a great market for Chile, given that it is the country that represents more than 97 percent of the exports of this fruit from the southern hemisphere.