The Ministry of Agriculture has signed the first bilateral agreement as part of the industry reform with Costa Rica, to expand pineapple imports to Israel to meet the growing demand for fruit.
To this day the exotic fruit is imported only from the Dominican Republic and Kenya.
During the past year, 95% of these two countries have imported pineapples compared to 2020. As mentioned, the Ministers of Finance and Agriculture signed an order to reduce tariffs on fruits and vegetables, which is intended to increase competition in the agricultural agricultural market in Israel.
In this context, unlike eight agricultural products for which the tariff reduction will be gradual, the duty on the pineapple was abolished immediately, which facilitates the import of the fruit from various sources in the world.
Meanwhile, farmers are furious following the words of Agriculture Minister Oded Forer at the Israel Today resilience conference that the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture is the highest it has ever been, and that it is money that goes to farmers.
In an interview with Sonia Gorodisky, the economic editor of Israel Today, he noted that he increased the number of foreign workers by 20% and transferred hundreds of millions of shekels to research and development.
Minister Forer, Photo: Sivan Shachor, Anaba, Ltd.
The chairman of the Farmers' Association and the president of the business sector, Dovi Amitai, said in response to the minister's words: "The minister is throwing sand in the eyes of the public and farmers.
According to the official graph of the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, this is an increase of NIS 40 million, so there are no additions of hundreds of millions to farmers and there is no excess support for farmers. "
Forer also referred to the high price of pineapple in Israel and said that he did not understand why his coalition members were protecting the pineapple growers, who he claimed "because of them Israeli citizens can not buy the product at a reasonable price."
On the other hand, Amitai claimed that the prices of imported pineapple were not low either.
"So are Israeli farmers the problem? Will imports solve the price problem? It is enough to do what is easy and populist - we should do what is right but more difficult," Amitai claimed.
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