The export crop estimate for South Africa's new avocado crop is 17 million 4kg cartons, 5% higher than last season. Hass volumes are lower than last year, while Fuerte and Pinkerton volumes are looking favourable.
"The local avocado season started quite early this year, with Fuerte moisture levels testing right for harvesting in week 4 already. Due to the heavy rains experienced in November, there was still a large portion of late season Hass, Ryan and Fuerte that got pushed to being picked in January," says an avocado buyer for a retailer.
"The presence of so much late season and early season fruit available on the markets at the same time was an anomaly. The high volumes of fruit available at the end of January meant that early season production areas like Tzaneen and Levubu unfortunately did not manage to secure the high pricing they usually obtain on the municipal markets during this time of the season. The volumes on the open markets were exacerbated by imports from neighbouring African countries like Tanzania and Mozambique."
The prevalent rain this past week put a halt to large scale picking in the early areas like Levubu but most growers are looking forward to start picking for the export markets from next week as the weather starts clearing.
Incessant rain will impact Fuerte quality
The window of high price opportunity on the local market has become so small due to more late and early areas coming into production, as well as supply from Tanzania and Mozambique, that growers are looking to rather starting with their export programmes immediately instead of first trying to play the open markets in South Africa.
"Quality on the early season Fuerte will not benefit from the incessant rains we’ve seen over the last three weeks," the buyer continues. "Stem end rot once the fruit turn ripe is one of the main concerns. The overall fruit set and quality looks promising and we should be seeing similar volumes on total avocado production as in 2022."
Big avo volumes to market last week
Last week a large amount of avocados simultaneously reached the local market, and the price plummeted to a much lower level than last year this time.
Locally, the average avocado price is between R21 (1.1 euro) and R26 (1.34 euro) per kilogram, trending downwards as volumes increase and expected, according to AMT agricultural market analyst, "[to] possibly stabilise at the R10 [0.5 euro, per kilogram] mark by the start of March where it can remain for a few months."
"We've had a lot of rain, really too much," says an avocado farmer outside Nelspruit in the Lowveld. "We've not had flood damage specifically in our orchards, as they're planted onto slopes, but lower down closer to the river there were orchards under water, I'd say anyone within the 100-year flood line of the Crocodile River."
Pump houses have been swept away and a lot of damage was done to roads and infrastructure in the Lowveld.
"We're trying to stay positive while the markets are under pressure and price prospects don't look very good. We're between a rock and a wet place at this stage," the Nelspruit farmer quips. Their avocado harvest starts towards the end of April.