Armenia starts exports of its most famous fruit
YEREVAN, June 21. /ARKA/. Armenia has started exports of its most famous fruit- apricots, which has become easier this year thanks to resolution of a set of logistical problems, Russian MIR 24 TV channel reported.
Yerevan variety of elongated fruits with juicy flesh ripens earlier than others. In the village of Surenavan, Ararat province, apricot trees occupy more than 4,000 hectares. This is the most sought-after fruit, which can earn good money.
"The harvest this year is rich, we are not complaining, and exporters buy it for a good price. A few days ago we sold them for 130 Russian rubles (per kilo), but now there is a lot of fruit, everything is ripe, so the purchase price has halved, but we are happy nonetheless," says Mkhitar Grigoryan, a farmer.
Every day in Surenavan alone, forty tons of apricots are harvested - two trucks. You can't sell that much at the local market. Farmers find out every day how things are going at Upper Lars border check point on the Georgian-Russian border, where usually long lines of trucks form.
"At first, the farmers were upset, they thought they wouldn't be able to export apricots at all and would lose their harvest. Now there is no downtime, and we have already taken 50 heavy trucks out of the village. The Economy Ministers of Armenia and Russia resolved the issue by agreeing to simplify customs clearance for perishable products," said Suren Nazaryan, representative of the Surenavan village administration.
The shelf life of these fruit is short, with late varieties to be harvested in mid-July. Apricots are most profitable to buy on the roadside near the villages where the fruit grows. One kilogram of selected fruits costs 130 rubles, in the city - with a margin of 20 percent.
June is the month when the first seasonal apricots appear on store shelves. Buyers are wary of how safe they are for their health and whether they contain too many chemicals used to treat fruit trees. According to the agronomist Yelizaveta Tikhonova, the substances they are sprayed with will not cause any problems. -0-
