Purely illustrative photo of watermelon (PeakPx)
A part of the country that is supplied by watermelons produced in Kumamotothe biggest Japanese produceris feeling the shortage.
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This time would be the peak shipping season for this refreshing and healthy fruit. However, something unusual occurred.
Both in the province and in the neighboring ones, you don’t see the watermelons displayed in supermarkets and greengrocers, which is strange, as in normal times the Golden Week holiday is marked by the first calls of spring watermelons.
A couple of producers, from the city of Ueki, cultivate watermelons for more than 30 years. They showed what happened with the cultivation and the scenes were shocking for the report.
Cracked watermelon in the field and withered leaves (KKT/NTV)
There was cracked watermelons and withered leaves. Not due to lack of care, but due to a problem caused by nature. The growers of this fruit are devastated. “The cause was bad weather. With rains continuous in the month of April we did not have enough sunlight to increase the sugar content and also the size”, explained one of them.
In Kumamoto there were 18 days of rain, with a total rainfall of 204.5 millimeters, much higher than the annual average of 144.9.
The amount of Sun light required for the growth of watermelons was 119.6 hours, ⅔ of the average of 184 hours.
Therefore, many of the fruit growers they estimate that they will harvest only 70% of the normal amount. The consequence of this for the end consumer is that watermelons will see a price increase of around 10 to 20%.
However, depending on weather conditions, a harvest better at the beginning of summerwhich could normalize the prices.
Fonte: NTV
