Interpera World Pear Conference Pt 2

Interpera World Pear Conference Pt 2

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Pear industry experts from around the world converged on Wenatchee two weeks ago for the Interpera Congress, where high density planting, harvest and packing house mechanization, and new pear variety research were just a few of the topics discussed.

And, one of the biggest obstacles pear researchers deal with, according to Pear Bureau Northwest president Kevin Moffitt, is money ...

KEVIN MOFFITT ... "Pear research funding from the U.S. comes from actual production, the number of boxes produced. The growers put about 3-and-a-half cents per box towards research directly. And, we just don't have that many boxes, like 20-million boxes of pears are produced compared to the apple side of the industry which is six times that easily. So, there's just not as much money available to put towards that research and then you multiply that worldwide and Europe's a huge apple producer and there are many big apple-producing countries in Europe. And, pears are just a smaller crop worldwide so we don't have the resources or the funds that some of the other crops have. So, yeah, we're always up against that wall."

Moffitt says marketing is another major challenge for the somewhat overlooked pear ...

KEVIN MOFFITT ... "They are the overlooked product in the produce department and we have to always keep pears top-of-mind and keep people reminded that pears are wonderful. They love them when they try them, but they just don't think about them when going to the store, so we have to get them in front of people when they're in the store."

Over 160 pear industry professionals from 13 pear-producing countries attended this year's Interpera Congress.

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