South African citrus growers are emerging from pre-season morbidity to celebrate a record season.
Growers will have shipped some 118 million cartons of fruit once their season winds up towards the end of November. Both in volume terms and financially, the industry will therefore reflect on its best-ever season once it closes for the traditional Christmas break and the growers head for the country’s seashore resorts.
The eventual result is a far cry from pre-season warnings that 2015 could have been very tough due to the world’s economic climate, problems with dealing with CBS (citrus black spot) in Europe and the fallout of the Russian crisis. The final export volume of 118m cartons will be 5m more than the season’s forecast and 8m cartons more than last year’s shipments of 110m cartons.
The export volume will include around 77m cartons of oranges (Valencias 52.4m cartons and Navels 24.5m) and it is the first time that the orange category has exceeded 75m cartons. Grapefruit was also a significant performer, with 16.1m cartons being exported compared to the forecast of 15.3m and last year’s 14.9m. Lemons rose by more than 2m cartons compared to last year’s shipments of 12.9m cartons, while soft citrus was more or less on the same level as last year.
Considerable exchange rate benefits, particularly in relation to the euro, US dollar and British pound, were the cherry on the cake and will make 2015 a year that will probablynot be repeated too often.
In Europe, where exports were suspended early by the South African industry to avoid problems with the EU regarding CBS, the last fruit will be out of the season soon. In all the giant effort by growers to avoid shipping any risky fruit seemed to have paid off and South Africa could well be pleased with the efforts.
However, it was the performance of a number of markets that also relieved pressure on the volumes normally shipped to the EU, as well as Russia - where the Russian economy presented more problems - that made the difference in the end.
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