There is a drastic fruit price increase in Hungary

Fewer and fewer people can afford fresh fruit, as the prices have gone up significantly. However, the poor weather is not the only thing to blame the increase on.

The latest statistics have revealed that food prices rose by an average of 7.9 per cent each year, while the cost of fresh fruit rose by a shocking 46 per cent, reported Népszava. The rise also increased further this year.

Pears cost €2.5 per kilogram, apples €1.70-2.20, and peaches cost about the same. These prices are, however, not something that people living in poverty, or retirees can afford, making these sources of vitamins inaccessible to many. Grapes at both the markets and in larger food chains also cost around €1.4. Bananas remain on the cheaper side and can be bought for just about €0.85. Both producers and merchants claim the increase in prices is not because of them.

This year’s awful weather also played a crucial part in the increase in prices. “The frost in May thoroughly battered the blossoming apple, plum, cherry, sour cherry and especially apricot trees,” Attila Vári, consultant to the National Association of Agricultural Cooperatives and Producers, told Népszava. Apricots suffered the most severe damages, resulting in the loss of 70-100 per cent of the crops.

Modern plantations are equipped to cope through three to four days of -4 to -6°C, and even most older gardens can manage to protect the crops. However, the frost in May lasted too long, and the temperature was too low.  Neither smoking, nor humidification, nor chemical treatment proved to be sufficient methods to save the production.

In late May, early June, the “monsoon” rains arrived, mainly damaging the cherries, as well as the strawberries. The cherries cracked because of the rainfall collecting in their stalk, so they could not be sold, while the strawberry crops rotted in the fields.

According to Vári, the producers did not push the prices too high. The traders bought apples, for example, from producers for €0.55 plus VAT, instead of last year’s €0.28; in the shops that will cost around €1.96. And at the markets, they are not any cheaper either. The frost also devastated Polish crops, so not even their apples could keep the Hungarian prices in check.

Hungarian producers were also affected somewhat by the backlog of foreign guest workers, resulting in labour getting more expensive in Hungary as well. Because of several factors, such as fertilisers, imported materials, plant protection products and also the weak HUF, the costs rose by about 30-40 per cent.

The weather would not have caused such a loss if there were more modern plantations in Hungary than old ones, but that is not the case. While the number of older orchards is decreasing each year, there is still a significant amount of them. 

“Although many people have developed their plantations, there would have been even more if the plantation modernisation applications of the rural development programs had not been too bureaucratic and for many, the conditions were not reachable, such as the mandatory ice net, which can cost up to 10 million forints per hectare. Besides, an intensive plantation takes 2-4 years, depending on the variety, to turn fruitful and until then it only takes money to cultivate the plantation and undertake plant protection. Those who cannot undertake intermittent development prefer to give up modernisation,” the expert remarked.

“For years, experts have been voicing that plantations should be planted more carefully than before. In the Great Plain regions, experimentation with more frost-sensitive species should be done more carefully. At least progress has been made in this. The administrative offices that allow the planting are not recommending the planting of sensitive fruits in the frost-stricken area. There is a relatively transparent cadastral system from which producers can find out where and what the authority allows. The support system also determines in which counties the planting of which fruits is supported. Of course, the farmer can do what he or she wants, but he or she then risks not getting support,” said Attila Vári.

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Source: nepszava.hu