In Croatia, strawberry and cherry producers are facing a serious labor shortage, which directly affects the decline in production and the reduction in the number of producers.

Since 2021, the Association of Zagreb Strawberry Growers has recorded a drop in membership from 55 to 24, while the number of cherry producers has decreased from 13 to just six. The areas under plantations have been halved, and annual production has fallen from 450 to only 150 to 180 tons, writes Večernji list.

Due to the shortage of pickers, producers across Croatia are increasingly turning to the self-picking model, where citizens come to pick fruit themselves and pay by the kilogram. At the plantation of OPG Pustički near Zagreb, owner Danijel Pustički points out that he currently lacks at least seven to eight pickers, and whether self-picking will prove to be a better solution remains to be seen. Although public interest is high, owners warn that some self-pickers cause more harm than good.

The president of the Zagreb Cherry Association, Zlatan Kljaković Gašpić, is also turning to self-picking, but emphasizes that due to poor weather conditions and the absence of pollinators, damage to cherries in Croatia is as high as 70 percent. Although he arranged for the arrival of eight pickers, they did not show up the next day, nor did they get in touch: "Just yesterday I was supposed to have eight pickers from Ruševac come, Roma. They had come the day before to agree on 7 euros per hour, which is a salary of 1300 euros per month based on 182 working hours. The next day they did not show up at all, nor did they get in touch".

"With every new rain, the cherries crack, and the damage has already exceeded 30 thousand euros," Gašpić points out.

Kljaković Gašpić also warns about administrative obstacles in hiring foreign workers in Croatia, while in other European countries that process is significantly simpler. "There are no local people, half of the young have emigrated, and the older ones are no longer around or cannot work," he emphasizes. Also, fruit growers in Croatia cannot afford expensive harvesting robots like those used in Italy.

Branimir Markota, president of the Croatian Fruit Growers Association, confirms that fruit growing in Croatia lacks about 30 percent of the workforce, or up to 2,000 people during the season, and in agriculture as a whole as many as 10,000 workers. He sees the self-picking model as a temporary solution, but warns that it is little comfort for the decline in production and the ever-increasing fruit imports, which reached 386.3 million euros last year, 10 percent more than the year before.

The Croatian Fruit Growers Association says that it is necessary to invest in mechanization, protection against natural disasters, and irrigation, and to ensure tenders that would enable fruit growers to maintain sustainable and profitable production. The Minister of Agriculture and the Speaker of Parliament emphasize the importance of agriculture for national security, but producers wonder whether enough is being done to solve these problems.