The head of the Serbian Raspberry farmers’ Association said that bad weather reduced this year’s crop by up to 35 percent.

Association chief Dobrivoje Radovic told the Beta agency that storms and hail hit western Serbia causing 100 percent damage to the crop in some areas. “The raspberry harvest is some 35 percent lower than before because of storms and cold weather,” he said and warned that more of this year’s crop could be destroyed by bad weather over the next few weeks.

Radovic said that the price paid to farmers per kilogram dropped from last year’s 500-600 Dinars to the expected 350-450 Dinars this year. He said that exporters and resellers were hard hit by the drop in price and could not cover their debts to farmers.

According to Radovic, last year’s raspberry harvest was around 60,000 tons with another 45,000 tons imported at lower prices from Poland and Ukraine to mix with locally-produced raspberries for export.

Serbia’s exports of frozen raspberries stood at 361 million Euro in 2021.