Romanians choose more and more to eat apples, pears and plums that are imported, because they look better, and the domestic grown fruits, down to a third in terms of consumption preferences, risk to disappear from the markets over the next 3 to 5 years, Aurel Tanase stated, the director of Prodcom.
"Only 60% of the national vegetables consumption is provided by the domestic market and 30-35% of the consumption in fruit. The vegetables and fruit market is estimated at around 700 million euros," the chief executive Prodcom Vegetables Fruits branch organizations said, according to obiectiv.info.
According to INS reported data, in 1989, in Romania almost 240,000 hectares of orchards were registered, meanwhile their surface dropped to 147,000 hectares. Tanase said that in this area, only 75,000 hectares are "bearing fruit". In the last 10 years 7,500 hectares of orchards were just planted.
He added that many orchards are already old and the fruits are no longer edible.