The president of the Chilean fruit producers union, Jorge Valenzuela, also referred to the lower availability of seasonal workers in areas such as Atacama, where the table grape harvests are breaking strongly, due to the impossibility of receiving to people from abroad. "The pandemic is clearly complicating the availability of workers and the quality of work."

In the strong cherry harvests in the central zone and with the beginning of said work in the north of Chile for table grapes, and before a possible second wave of Covid-19 in January that could lead to new confinements for cities and productive regions at the peak of the season, is that Fedefruta has raised its concern regarding the complications that this may mean. This, along with ensuring the difficulties that have occurred in terms of hiring workers for the crops due to restrictions due to the pandemic.

This was expressed by the president of the Federation of Fruit Producers of Chile (Fedefruta), Jorge Valenzuela Trebilcock, during his speech at the main event of the country's nursery industry, Agro Plant Ñuble, organized by the Association of Nurseries of Chile.

"Today we are talking about a second wave of coronavirus, in January, just when we are in full harvest in all fruit-growing regions, with table grapes, cherries, berries, stone fruit and other species," said the leader. "" Therefore, as long as we have traceability in the processes and we operate very rigorously all the protocols that we have agreed upon, we will be able to continue operating. "

The president of Fedefruta said that an eventual confinement in a particular region or city "leads us to logistics problems, delays in fresh fruit, with which we cannot give ourselves waiting times. A hard confinement in some region of course it will mean problems, so the call of us as a Federation is to be very responsible, we take care of our fields and our crops. "

Lower availability of workers and quality of work

Another phenomenon that is derived from the Covid-19 effect, "is that we have many problems hiring workers, especially in some areas," confirmed Valenzuela. "Now I am arriving from Copiapó, in the north, where the table grape harvests are beginning, and there was a strong availability of people from Bolivia who today have not been able to enter Chile due to the pandemic."

Thus, the union leader explained that the producers of Atacama have had to mobilize workers from other regions, "which has implied an increase in costs, and brought in labor with ignorance of the particular work of table grapes in the north So the pandemic is clearly complicating the availability of workers and the quality of work. "

For the moment, "the sector must pay great attention to training people, mobilizing workers with all due care, regarding the protocols to avoid Covid-19 both in the fields and in the plants, and in the routes ", Valenzuela emphasized.

Protocol requirement

"Today, with the strong cherry harvests since mid-November, and with the introduction of table grape harvests in the north of the country, we have to prepare to run a marathon, a marathon in terms of meeting with health protocols, "Valenzuela also said. "The most important challenge we have as fruit producers and exporters is to avoid any contingency of Covid-19 in the orchards, and of course in the processing plants, so you have to be extremely strict with temperature control, with the use of masks, with the use of alcohol gel in all processes, and be able to trace if there is a positive case of coronavirus ".

For the president of Fedefruta, it is very important to point out that "the authority has been working together with the unions to have a clear track for export," considering the demands that markets such as China have raised. "However, we depend a lot on the work that we each do individually in their fields and packings."