Poland beats Serbia to become world's largest raspberry manufacturer

Poland has become the world's largest raspberry manufacturer. In 2012 the total volume reached 127,000 metric tons. About 90 percent of the fruit is exported.

For many years the production volume of Polish raspberries stood at some 50,000 tons annually, but it has recently increased significantly.

Last year Poles harvested 127,000 tons of raspberries. One of the main growth factors was the introduction of the “Polana” variety, which yields fruit for several months of the year.

Thanks to the new raspberry type, Poland managed to knock out Serbia for the leadership, which produces some 90,000 tons annually.

Another growth factor was EU subsidies for soft fruit growing that were launched in 2007. Thanks to them, the total area of Poland's raspberry fields grew to 28,000 hectares, Jan Świetlik from the Polish Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics told Puls Biznesu.