The South African top-fruit season is under way and by all accounts, volume is likely to be slightly larger than last year. Growers are also reporting that the crop looks set to contain a large proportion of big fruit.
Production regions experienced particularly hot weather during January and, although this created some sunburn and colouration problems on early fruit, it also produced an early Bon Chretien harvest with an excellent eating quality. Evening temperatures are cooling as South Africa moves into autumn, and this augurs well for the colour development on the blush pears and bi-coloured apples. The Western Cape received good winter rains and producers are reporting that water shortages are not likely this year.
Nigel Mudge, chairman of the South African Joint Marketing Forum, confirms that the apple harvest is set to be five per cent larger than last year and the pear harvest is approximately nine per cent bigger.
The two main production regions in South Africa’s Western Cape region are the Ceres/Koue Bokkeveld area and the Elgin area. The Elgin area is milder and more coastal than the Ceres Koue Bokkeveld region, which is situated at higher altitudes, and this year the harvest in this area has again yielded larger fruit when compared with the Elgin area.
Harvesting of early fruit such as Royal Gala and early Bon Chretien is now mostly complete and due to the heat in January, the Royal Gala colour development was somewhat disappointing. Growers are currently harvesting Packham’s Triumph, Golden Delicious and Forelle. The Packham’s Triumph harvest is yielding large, good quality fruit and volumes should be substantially higher than the 2006 crop. Golden Delicious fruit size is good and does not appear to have problems with russeting. The harvest is also likely to be larger than last year.
Beurre Bosc, Golden Russet Bosc, Buerre Hardy and Comice pears were harvested during February and both the fruit size and volumes proved to be much better than expected. This was particularly true for the Bosc varieties, whereas the Comice was somewhat disappointing in the warmer production areas.
The Forelle harvest has started a little later this year than the norm. Harvesting has commenced and reports are that although the crop is larger as far as volumes are concerned, but that the fruit is generally on the small side. Although the Forelle harvest has started, the standard eight-week storage period for the variety means that, as a rule, the first South African Forelle only becomes available from early May. In the meantime, other blush pears such as Rosemarie and Flamingo are used to fill this supply gap. “Rosemarie and Flamingo are both blush pears that generally do well in the market at this time, but because achieving the proper blush colour is becoming increasingly difficult due to our warmer climate, many producers have simply stopped growing them,” says Martynet Marais, top-fruit manager for Dole South Africa. “This year has again proved to be disappointing due to amount of colour bleached from these pears during the hot weather we experienced during January.”
As the season progresses it will become more evident whether this hot weather has had much of an effect on later varieties such as Granny Smith and bi-coloured apples. The crop size for Braeburn, Cripps Pink and Cripps Red are looking good and the current cooler evening temperatures are good news for the colouration of bi-coloured apples. This will also become more apparent during autumn.
“Thus far the season is proceeding well. The CA (controlled atmosphere) chambers are full and we have had no quality complaints from our markets,” says Liezel Kriegler, who heads up the top-fruit division at Colors Fruit and is a member of the Joint Pome Marketing Forum. “We just need to take lessons from the past and guard against oversupplying our markets,” she adds.
“The harvest looks good at this stage, and although we still have to harvest and pack 80 per cent of the crop over the next two months, we are cautiously optimistic,” says Gysbert Du Toit of the DuToit Group, one of South Africa’s largest top-fruit producers with farms in the Koue Bokkeveld production region centred around the town of Ceres as well as in the Langkloof production region, 400km to the east. The Langkloof production is later than the Western Cape and serves well to extend the South African supply period. The region is isolated, and although logistics remain a challenge, it is fast catching up to the Western Cape with production techniques and technical expertise. There have been reports of isolated incidents of hail damage in this region, with only slight damage to the harvest.
The current exchange rate is looking positive for South African growers and, with the large harvest, shippers will need to exercise caution and guard against oversupplying certain markets, says Stefan Conradie, product manager for South Africa pome and stonefruit.
The concern is that because favourable exchange rates make the export market a very attractive option, large quantities of standard fruit that would otherwise be sold on the South African domestic market or sent to processing could end up in the export market, making it increasingly difficult for growers to achieve high prices for exceptional fruit.
“Total exports of Bon Chretien had increased by 520,000 cartons for shipments up to week seven and the first Packham’s Triumph have started arriving in the markets, where they will face competition, especially from Argentinian pears, so we are advocating a degree of caution to all role-players,” he says.
The South African top-fruit industry is working towards implementing a comprehensive real time-inspection and export pallet-tracking information system. Inspection and shipping information will be made available to relevant industry stakeholders on a weekly basis. This up-to-date information should be of vital importance to all industry stakeholders.
“This will present an overall picture of exports and assist shippers in making strategic marketing decisions which could pre-empt oversupply to certain markets. This is good news for producers and shippers,” Mudge explains. He also says that this would not have happened without the input of the Joint Marketing Forum, and reported that the closer level of information-sharing and co-operation between southern hemisphere top-fruit producing countries has been of great benefit for the fruit industries in planning market strategies and development. One of the challenges to collecting information has been the logistical change in data capture process between the traditional reefer vessels and the increasingly popular container vessels, and the new system has taken this into account.
Conradie has been driving this project over the past four months and has negotiated deals with independent information service providers to facilitate this data flow from loading points throughout South Africa. “We are excited about this new initiative and once we have this system running smoothly, it will be of great benefit to our fruit industry,” he says. “The deciduous industry is working together with the citrus sector on this initiative, so it will be of benefit to the broader South African fruit sector.”
The industry has also been able to project accurate production estimates for each cultivar for this season. “In the 10 years since deregulation, this is the first time that the South African top-fruit industry has been able to do this,” says Mudge. “We are pleased to say that at present the actual harvest figures are running on target with the estimates.”
On the flipside, one serious challenge facing the top-fruit industry and the South African fruit industry in general is a growing shortage of seasonal labour. Although the general trend in agriculture is towards larger production units to optimise on the scale of quantities, this also means that bringing in the harvest requires a large workforce, but only during the harvest season. Growers are reporting a shortage of labour, a worldwide problem that has never existed in South Africa before. Part of the problem is the boom in the construction industry as well as tourism, which offer permanent jobs as well as better security, and as this trend is likely to continue, the produce industry will need to formulate a response to this new challenge. Interestingly, one of the positive results of controlled-atmosphere storage and packaging facilities in the top-fruit sector is that they have created permanent employment for workers who would otherwise have been seasonal workers.
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