Abundant rainfall in May and June damaged the quality of strawberry, affecting exports. Aneta Ganenco, president of the Moldovan Berries Association, told IPN that both field- and greenhouse-grown crops were affected. 

Due to above-average humidity levels, many strawberries rotted before they could be exported. On the domestic market, says Aneta Ganenco, the situation wasn’t any much better given “an invasion of berries from Ukraine, about which buyers were told they were of Moldovan origin.”

Still, Aneta Ganenco says the farmers who cultivated their strawberries on protected areas were better off, and greenhouses should become the preferred cultivation medium to protect farmers from the increasingly erratic weather. 

At present in Moldova, berries are cultivated on 4,000 hectares, a quadrupling since 2010. Last year Moldova exported 2,800 tonnes of berries, by 1,000 tonnes more than in 2017.