In September the agriculture economies started the purveyance of grapes to wine production companies. As always the authorities assured that there would be no problems with it. According to the information of the agriculture minister, this year we will have 125.000 tons of grapes. The announced minimum price was 120. The cognac factory of Yerevan announced that it would pay 130 for one kilo.
This year a contract sample was adopted to define the rights and responsibilities of agriculture economies wishing to sell grapes and the companies wishing to buy grapes. Despite the assurances of the agriculture minister that there would not be any bad surprises this year, the companies are waiting till the last day of the announced period to buy the grapes for lower prices.
“Companies still continue buying grapes and several companies will still keep their doors open till the last day of the announced period. The average price per kilo was 124,4 drams, and the 65% of the money has been paid in cash. It makes about 10 billion drams,” said the agriculture minister Gerasim Alaverdyan, which in fact is a total lie. The villagers of Verin Artashat of Ararat region say that they don’t believe in the government because always they have been cheated, even they say that last time when the president came to their village he said that the price for one kilo would be 130 drams, but when he left from their village and he had not been able to reach the access point of Noragavit community, the companies started buying grapes from the villagers at a price of 70 drams per kilo. The villagers assure that even some of them have sold the grapes for 40-50 drams per kilo. We talked to a woman, who calculated all the expenses that she had made to cultivate the grapes, and said that she had to give the grapes to another person for 40-50 drams per kilo because she did not have a contract and that person had, this she could not sell it directly and the other person paid very cheap to them for buying their grapes. “The officials say one thing on TV, but the reality is totally different from what they say. This year we paid a lot of money for the chemical materials we used to cultivate the grapes, but as we did not have a contract we had to agree to give out what we have for very low prices,” said a villager to us, who during our conversation was selling grapes to some people from Vanadzor. “We are buying it for the markets, the people of our city want to eat grapes too,” said the people from Vanadzor and paid 200 drams for one kilo. However, you can’t buy grapes for less than 600 drams per kilo in the markets of Yerevan. These people say that they are told that the price is 120-130 drams, but when they take to the companies they offer not more than 80 for one kilo. Even some of the villagers say that the wine production owners have changed their taste and now they prefer the old types of grapes.
These people are so disappointed that they even want to leave from this country, some of them even want to sell their houses. They say that in their village many people want to sell their houses to leave from the country. “The factory politicizes people. It has been five years that I have a contract with Gagik Tsarukyan’s company that buys grapes. I took the grapes to sell to them they told me either to join their party or at least bring a name of my family members to register with the Prosperous Armenia party. The problem is that this company offers comparatively better conditions,” said one of the villagers and expressed how insulted he was when he did not get fertilizers given to villagers as electoral bribe during the previous elections. By the way, some of them have not even received the money for their grapes they sold last year. The people of Verin Artashat said as they were talking to each other that they had heard that the price for one vote would not be 5000 drams anymore and would be reduced to 3000 drams. This shows how impatiently they are waiting for the next circle of elections to take electoral bribe. “Elections are the only time the authorities care about us,” said the villagers. Even some of the villagers were surprised so much that they would even agree to give the grapes to their animals than sell for such low prices. Simple calculations show that they can feed their animals with grape for almost the same prices as the grass. Due to the bad weather conditions the harvest of grape was less this year, but still the villagers are experiencing problems with selling it. During the past years they were able to exchange one box of grapes with three sacks of potato, but this year they can hardly take even one sack of potato.