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Heatwaves have hit many regions globally in the past years, affecting both human activity and farming. It is especially problematic for sensitive berries like raspberries. Heat, drought, and other related extreme weather events can accelerate the ripening of raspberry. Instead of havingraspberries regularly ripen in a couple of weeks, the ripening time is concentrated in a period of a few days. This only causes glut of berries and low wholesale price if not enough buyers are available at the time of harvest. A solution to avoid these challenges ever is to immediately IQF freeze harvested raspberries on-site.

The EU Commission has included the revision of a Community Plant Variety Right (CPVR) regulation in its recently published IP Action Plan, in a move welcomed by plant breeding organizations.

This year's Peruvian blueberry season began in June with the export of 1,010 tons worth 5 million dollars. These figures represented a 25% increase in volume and a 77% increase in value over the same month of 2019. The lower production in the northern hemisphere due to weather problems allowed producers to achieve attractive prices of $ 5.15 per kilogram in June.

Spanish berries are among the casualties of strong winds and rain late last week that caused severe damage in parts of the province of Huelva.

After Australia, Argentina has the second-largest certified organic area in the world. 238,000 hectares of the 3.7 million hectares under organic monitoring are destined for plant production. In this context, the cultivated area of blueberries showed important growth in the last decade, going from only 156 hectares in 2011 to 1,001 hectares in 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic is strongly conditioning the development of Argentina's blueberry season. The Association of Blueberry Producers of Argentina's Mesopotamia (APAMA) developed, with the endorsement of the Stamboulian Center, which specializes in infectious disease, a special protocol for field and packaging tasks to protect its workers against possible infections. Alejandro Pannunzio, the president of APAMA, said the protocol established respiratory protection measures, as well as measures to transport the personnel, disinfect the transport units, and distribute the personnel in the fields.

With growing investments in hi-tech orchards and logistics infrastructure, Serbia’s modernised fruit production is on the rise.