Personal archive
RED GOLD: Our raspberries have conquered the planet
Serbia has always been an agricultural country, living on land and livestock, and during the great crises the people were not afraid of famine, because the fields were producing abundantly and the barns were full.
There was always a surplus, so the Serbs always sold pigs and plums, first to the Viennese court, and later to other rich countries in Western Europe.
The signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, which was signed by Serbia and Bahrain, indicated that our country is returning to the paths of old glory.
The guests from Bahrain watched how and what Serbia was doing, and were thrilled to realize that our exports were more than $ 4.2 billion in the year of the corona virus.
Everything looks even better if we know that Bahrain is one of the richest countries in the Gulf and that is why it means a lot when there is cooperation with it, as well as with the United Arab Emirates, especially since logistical cooperation with them is not a problem for Serbia.
– They realized that our goods are of high quality and more competitive than other goods. The opening of the UAE and Bahrain is the opening of the entire Gulf. We return here where we were 30-40 years ago, when Yugoslavia was. These are new markets, new opportunities to export as much as possible, and thus the prices of products will grow as soon as the demand grows – Branislav Nedimović, the Minister of Agriculture, is optimistic.
Our products have reached the shelves of almost all European countries, America and Russia, but also Asia and Australia.
Among the domestic strategic products is raspberry, in the production of which we rank third in the world, and in terms of frozen “red gold”, we are the world leader ahead of Poland and Chile. The Serbian Chamber of Commerce says that raspberry growing is dominant in our country, blueberries are expanding, and strawberries have great potential.
– At the moment, we are number one in the quality of raspberries in the world – says Dobrivoje Radović, president of the Association of Raspberries and Blackberries, and adds that with better planting material we could have 25,000 hectares under raspberries and export 170,000 tons, so we would be first in quantity.
In the “red gold” harvest season, raspberry growing directly and indirectly involves about a million and a half people. Every year, we export several hundred thousand tons of apples to distant destinations such as India, China, Russia and America.
Our country exports almost everything: cereals, fodder, fruits, vegetables, meat products. More than 90 percent of apples go to the Russian Federation, berries mainly go to the European Union market, we also export to Japan, America and Canada. Most of all, primarily to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania. It is a market for us in the environment, it has good logistics and there are good trade exchanges from before.
– We do not have a ban anywhere, what is good is that we have our products in markets such as Sweden, Japan, the American market, which are very demanding. Procedures are demanding and it is very difficult to export goods to America, and we succeed, we have products that have quality and price, but we do not have the quantity to be more present in some other markets – said Aleksandar Bogunovic, Secretary of the Plant Production Association. agriculture in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
A pair of pigs for 80 groschen
The most important “Serbian export brand” of Milosevic’s time were pigs. Up to 225,000 of them are exported annually, exclusively to Austria. Every spring, while the pigs were still thin, Viennese traders came to Serbia and bought them at a price of 70-80 groschen a pair, and then they conducted important trade with them, not only in Austria but also in other European countries… After pigs , the largest seller was large marwa.
Strong competition
Global demand for fruit is constantly growing. Today, the buyer in any part of the world can choose between the latest varieties from Bali or Thailand, Šumadija plum, apple from Čelarevo or Arilje and Ivanjica raspberries picked a few hours earlier.
Comments are closed.