The fifty cents per kilogram being paid for apples for industrial use, also known as fallen apple, are not enough to even pay the wages of the people who gather the fruit in the orchards, that price is offensive to the producer, said Jaime Ruiz Canaan, an apple producer.
This is not the first year in which the purchase price of fallen apples has been offensive to the producers, who in the end are responsible for said prices, as they sell their fruits to companies that don't even pay them what it costs them to pick the fruits in the orchards and take them to the collection centre.
Labourers earn about one hundred fifty pesos a day, their wages approach the two hundred pesos, so fallen apple prices won't cover labour prices, nor the fuel used to transport the fruit to the collection centre.
For the most part, it's the producers who are paying to maintain these crops and produce the fruits that the juicing businesses requires.
According to Jaime, some years ago there were several companies present in the fruit-growing region, which led them to compete and improved purchase prices. However, the companies colluded, dividing the country areas among themselves, thus creating a monopoly that directly affects fruit producers.
"I don't have the evidence to prove it, but this truly is a monopoly, which is illegal in the country," he stated.
However, the well-known politician and producer reflects, companies are not responsible for the situation; the producers are. "We are the ones that aren't united and we allow them to maintain these prices, which are offensive."
"If we snapped out of it and stopped taking our raw material to the companies, in this case the Valle Redondo company, they would have to pay what's fair, because the truth is that fifty cents a kilogram is a rip-off."
The Valle Redondo company opened the collection centre at the headquarters of the Regional Integrator of Apple Producers and started purchases on Friday.
