This year, the strawberry production has reduced due to pollination defect caused by typhoon during the growth phase (September to October 2019), and heavy rains during the peak flowering season (end of January to early February 2020).

 

❍ The exporting unit prices have rose slightly year-over-year following the shortage in production.

* Exporting Unit Price (KRW 1,000/2kg): (‘18.11.7) 28 → (12.12) 25 → (12.26) 21 → (’19.1.9) 18 → (3.8) 16 (‘19.11.6) 29 → (12.18) 25 ---------→ (’20.2.19) 22 → (3.9) 16.5

Tendency in Strawberry Exporting Unit Price

(Unit: KRW 1,000/2kg)

Last cropping season

This cropping season

 

In order to resolve difficulties (due to declining flights and rising air fares*) experienced by strawberry exporting farms and exporters due to the spread of COVID-19, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Minister Hyun-soo Kim, hereinafter ‘MAFRA’) has come up with various supportive measures.

* Flights (Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand): Available strawberry cargo volumes estimated to have reduced by 30% to 40% due to flight cancelations (industry)

* Air Fare: In the Southeast Asian market, which has become the largest strawberry export market (as of February 25, 2020 to March 13, 2020), the air fare has rose from an average of KRW 1,487/kg to KRW 2,959/kg (up by KRW 1,472/kg).

 

❍ (Export Logistics Cost) In order to reduce the burden of exporters following the rise in air fares, we have secured an additional logistics budget (KRW 3.4 billion, Previous: KRW 41.2 billion to KRW 44.6 billion), and are supporting at higher unit price (KRW 477/kg to 1,212).

 

❍ (Expanding Export Shipping) Since mid-February when the COVID-19 spread has gained speed, we have established strawberry export supporting plan by shipping to respond to the reduced flights.

- In order to deal with the deteriorating freshness, which was the biggest difficulty of exporting by ship, MAFRA is supporting the carbon dioxide (CO2) and chlorine dioxide (Clo2) treatments*.

* Effective in preventing complaints due to mushy texture of strawberry and fungus (RDA)

- (CO2) Concentration 30%, Increased hardness after a 3-hour treatment, (Clo2) 10ppm, Controls fungus after a 30-minute treatment

- Since early last March, export by ship to Hong Kong as well as Singapore and Vietnam has begun*, and it is evaluated that the quality does not vary greatly compared to exporting by air.

☞ Recently, following the intensifying rise in air fares and reduced flights, the year-over-year production has reduced (estimated by about 20% to 30%). However, the strawberry exporting performance has not reduced greatly because exporting by ship has created a cushion effect as an alternative exporting channel.

* Tendency of Exporting Fresh Strawberry: (End of February 2019) USD 21.3 million → (End of February 2020) 20.5 (△4.0%), (March 21, 2019) USD 28.2 million → (March 21, 2020) 27.2 (△3.7%)

* Company T, the largest strawberry exporter of Korea has been exporting to Hong Kong by air five days a week and by ship two days a week since early March.

 

- MAFRA plans to continue supports in exporting by ship until May when the strawberry export ends, and will create ship exporting manuals jointly with RDA through local monitoring on the quality.

 

❍ (Processing Support) Also, in order for strawberry exporting farms to secure stable supply of non-standard products (so-called ‘wonky strawberry’) to overseas franchises, etc., MAFRA is implementing the ‘Export Strawberry Processing Support Project’.

- So far, strawberry exporting farms have supplied partial volumes of ‘wonky strawberries’ to strawberry jam producers (KRW 800/kg), but since the processing demand had not been sufficient, this year, they have increased the supply unit price to overseas franchises by KRW 200 (KRW 1,000/kg) and increased the supply volumes to 2 tons daily (total 500 to 600 tons per season) to consume the entire lot for processing.

- This has blocked the overseas market distribution and inflow of domestic market of non-standard products, which is estimated to help improve the image of Korean strawberry and stabilize prices in the domestic strawberry market.

The Food Industry Policy Office director of MAFRA said, “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we are seeing more and more obstacles to exporting agricultural goods, but we are sharing the pains with the exporters and farms to overcome this crisis.”

 

❍ The director also added, “The government will also continue to listen to difficulties in the industry and make the best possible efforts to identify and implement at an early stage related projects so that the effects trickle down to people.”