Epress.am News from Armenia
The need for anti-hail stations in the towns of Vardashen, Narek, and Kaghtsrashen in the Ararat Province of Armenia has become more evident аs a hailstorm hit the area on May 23. The villagers, who complained to an Epress.am reporter that their orchards get damaged by hail every year, are discussing the possibility of raising funds to purchase an anti-hail station.
“They supposedly built a hail-station for our towns; however, it's in the vicinity of [Shahumyan] – 7 kilometers away from here, on the highway. There isn't even a tree there to get damaged by hail. These hail cannons do not benefit us in any way; on the contrary – the clouds come gather over our town,” a Narek resident said.
Narek was most seriously affected by the hailstorm on May 23; as the farmers informed our reporter, 50 percent of the apple, apricot, cherry, and quince crops was damaged here. According to them, the damage was about 40 percent in Vardashen and Kaghtsrashen; however, there is land in these towns which hasn't been affected at all.
Next, our correspondent visisted the orchards of Vardashen village head Gevorg Barkhoyan, whose apple trees and apricot trees had good harvest season; according to Barkhoyan, he had spent $1,000 on fertilization and processing. The village head, however, stated that, he didn't expect to sell more than two tons from the predicted 10-ton harvest. Hail damages on his produce were insignificant, but Barkhoyan is confident they make the fruit uncompetitive.
“Only the best, undamaged produce gets picked by [exporters]; it then travels three days to reach Moscow. If there is even one damaged apricot in the truck, the entire harvest will rot,” he said, adding that the latest storm lasted for 10 minutes, and hail was the size of a cherry.
“We knew a storm was coming; it was forecast. We sat and waited for our crops to get destroyed,” Barkhoyan said, stressing that it would have been possible to avoid damages if they had hail cannons to shoot.
The other villagers said they were so upset and disappointed that they even decided not to harvest the remaining crops.
On Sunday, May 24 Deputy Minister of Agriculture Samvel Galstyan and vice-governor of Ararat province Ashot Vardanyan arrived in Kaghtsrashen. According to the locals, Galstyan tried to reassure them by saying "it's all right, the damage is not that big, only about 2-3%."
The officials' attitude, the farmers said, suggested that raising the issue of financial compensation was meaningless.
P.S. While the residents of Kaghtsrashen want to get an anti-hail station, the village head is building a church in the center of the town.
