The crisis in the Red Sea will have a big effect on the movement of citrus this season with some Northern Hemisphere countries finding it very challenging to get fruit to Asia.
“We are not certain what effect it will have on the South African citrus exports yet,” said Justin Chadwick, CEO of Citrus Growers Association South Africa. “The Northern Hemisphere growers will find it more difficult to move fruit through the Middle East and it will be easier for them to send more into Europe. We think then that there will be a lot more fruit in Europe than normal from Egypt and Morocco and less in Asia. We might find that we have to analyse throughout the season which markets to send our citrus to.”
“Of course, each market has its own requirements and there are somethings which you can’t switch around, but there are some things which you can. We will have to see what can be sent to Asia instead of Europe at the beginning of the season. It is difficult to tell what the impact will be.”
The lemon harvest started at the beginning of the year but the main citrus volumes will start ramping up towards the beginning of May and will really get going in June and July and taper off into September.
“It’s been quite a good growing season with rain at the right times, flowering was really good and there is a good crop on the trees. We did have a bit of hail down in the Western Cape last week and some of the farmers down there got hit, but generally most regions are expecting a good crop.”
According to official figures the European market is looking good at the moment with high prices and Justin is hoping this will hold out to the start of the South African season.
“The EU is so important for us and we have to get it right there by conforming to all the measures which have been put in place and get our fruit to market.”
South Africa exports some citrus to India, but they are still required to do the fumigation on land before the fruit sets sail, or land based cold treatment.
“For every other market this is done in-transit, it adds extra time on the shipment and it is very disruptive. We have done some trial shipments where cold treatment took place in-transit which have been a success, so we hope the regulations will be changed soon as we see India as a priority market for South African citrus. The in-transit cold treatment regulation has already been changed for apples and pears, which have since seen export volumes double.”
For more information:
Justin Chadwick
Citrus Growers Association
[email protected]