“Some growers in Chile lost all their fields, others are fully covered with mud or debris”

The latest bout of heavy rain in Chile has areas that received 400 mm of rain causing an estimated $400 million in damages. While this is an initial estimate, according to producers and Fedefruta, Chile’s fruit representative organisation, there are still fields which cannot be reached, with damages expected to amount to much more.

Juan Pablo Orozco, Agronomist at producer and table grape exporter Frucentro in Chile, this second round of rain in two months have left them devastated. “Here in Chile we have had big problems with the rains lately, in some region’s we had more than 400 mm of rain in just two days. In some regions of Chile we had the same amount of rain for the whole winter, just in two days. This is the second bad weather event of the year and we have three regions with very big problems. Not only with the agriculture, but many people lost their homes. Some growers lost all their fields while others were left with their fields that are fully covered with mud or debris. This is going to take a lot of work to get it clean. In some cases they are losing all the crops where the rain and floods have heavily damaged the orchard. Now we have to worry about the frost we can get after these rains, which can damage plums and cherries that are starting to bloom.”