A new US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on the state of China’s citrus industry has forecast total production by the end of the year will see an increase of 10 per cent over 2007.
The Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) report pegs the combined citrus harvest at 21m tonnes, credited to good weather across the major growing regions.
Orange production accounts for 6m tonnes of that, with trees planted a few years ago finally hitting their harvesting peaks, and making a rise of 10 per cent since 2007.
Quality of oranges is lower than hoped for this year, after warmer summer and autumn temperatures resulted in smaller fruit and surface stains. The harvest was delayed two weeks by a cold winter.
Exports of Chinese citrus are on the whole down, according to the report; mandarin exports are predicted to have fallen dramatically by 40 per cent to 340,000 tonnes, in part due to a fruit fly outbreak in Sichuan Province and health concerns about Chinese produce in the wake of the melamine scare.
Orange and grapefruit exports are also down, by 19 per cent and 11 per cent respectively, to 100,000 tonnes and 90,000 tonnes over 2008.
Lemons are not as their name would suggest, however, with the export of the fruit rising slightly to 12,000 tonnes.
The report said rising production costs are biting hard; in the major navel orange growing province, Jiangxi, fertiliser costs have increased 70 per cent since 2007, and labour costs have doubled. The cost to produce a kilogram of navels in Ganzhou in Jiangzi is estimated at US$0.12.
On the import front, lemons are up slightly as a result of US prices falling about 30 per cent since last year, and mandarins are up 12 per cent to 18,000 tonnes on the back of the domestic fruit fly outbreak.
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