The Russian boycott has heavily affected the 2015 export statistics. The total export volume decreased by 15% by the beginning of June. Only the total export of peppers increased. The other BRIC countries lent themselves as new export markets for fruit and vegetables. For pears it was Brazil, China and India. The price development was reasonable for cucumbers, peppers and cherry tomatoes in 2015, but less good for loose and vine tomatoes. This was all shown in the new quarterly report for the agrarian sector from the ING Economic Bureau.
Strong decreasing in export volume of fruit and vegetables due to Russian trade embargo
The export damage caused by the Russian trade embargo didn't factor into the 2014 statistics, but did strongly in 2015. The export volumes were 15% down from the year before by the start of June. Last year over 137,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables (share of all vegetable export - 12%) and 42,500 tonnes (share of 25%) of fresh fruit was exported in this period. This year almost nothing. Excluding Russia the reduction would have been limited to 1%. Germany and the UK also imported less vegetables from the Netherlands, but Poland and Italy were growing markets. Of the top 5 products the export of pears (Russia share 31%) decreased the most (figure 13). They are naturally looking hard for alternative sales markets. The Dutch pears can now find their way to Brazilian and Chinese consumers. After opening the border to China at the end of October 2014 1 million kilos of pears were exported in six months. Negotiations with India have also advanced in selling the summer apples and pears there.
2015 starts with reasonable price development for vegetables
The price development for cucumbers and peppers is limitedly positive in 2015. For tomatoes the perspective is slightly less positive, certainly for loose and vine tomatoes. Despite the price pressure growers of tomatoes and cucumbers have had three reasonable years. According to the LEI the income from company in the period 2012-2014 was reasonably stable and higher than at the start of the century. After the turbulent 2009-2011 period (with two years of loss and a record yield in 2010).
In 2014 there was a record harvest of both tomatoes (900 million kg) and pears (349 million kg) (figure 14). Thanks to an increase in the cultivation surface and a significant increase of the production per hectare, the pear production rose by 7%, making it almost equal to that of apples (353 million kg). Over 60% of the pears and almost 20% of the apples are exported.
The high production volumes for both tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers as well as top fruit have also lead to a decrease in the retail prices since the end of 2013 (figure 15).
