AS PREDICATED by agricultural unions and industry chiefs earlier in the year, a huge surplus of grapes is being generated by this year’s harvest.
According to figures, around five million kilos of excess grapes have been grown.
Paphos deputies announced that a request has been lodged with the co-operative winery of Kamanterena in Stroumbi, which belongs to SODAP, to press them to take some of the surplus grapes.
Andreas Facontis, MP for AKEL confirmed that a meeting between the committee of SODAP, agricultural unions and local deputies had taken place to see what measures could be taken to lessen the problem.
Facontis said that the Cyprus wine industry was under great pressure from large quantities of good quality wines from well-known wine producing countries such as South Africa, Chile and Spain flooding the market at much lower prices than Cyprus could manage.
He added that this has in turn created a problem in the selling of Cyprus wines.
The MP also pointed out that in some hotel units and other businesses foreign wines were proving to be more popular.
The Paphos MP for AKEL said that SODAP had promised to take an additional one million kilos of grapes from growers, as long as an agreement for discussions with a German based company came to fruition.
Paphos MPs and the agricultural unions also said that they had been informed that SODAP was facing a number of economic difficulties and was asking the state for support. However, Facontis said the second phase of extending the winery in Stroumbi, which would include an onsite bottling plant, could very well be going ahead.
SODAP says that as in past years, they would continue to do all they could to help the grape growers but that urgent help from the government was needed; otherwise the co-operative company could be facing real financial difficulties.
It is planned to move the whole operation of SODAP from Limassol to the Kamanterena winery in Stroumpi.
Meanwhile, Antonis Antoniou, Paphos MP for political party DIKO has suggested that new farming policies should be examined during Cyprus position as head of the EU rotating presidency in 2012. He added that millions of kilos of grapes would go to waste this year, as wine producers simply couldn’t take all of the harvest, due to the fact that there are already large stocks of wine.
He concluded that in order for grape producers to be kept satisfied and a reasonable income to be generated for them, the state should step in. He also suggested that compensation for vine growers whose crops have been destroyed by the August heat wave should be made readily available.
Excessively high temperatures in August caused widespread destruction in many vineyards.
