AFCAFL2012 Cristian Tagle Chilean Cherry Committee

The Chilean Cherry Commitee's Cristián Tagle

The Chilean Cherry Committee has revised its export forecast downward once again in light of poor weather conditions during the spring. The latest estimate pegs the export crop at 74,501 tonnes, equivalent to 14.9m cartons. This represents a fall of 27.7 per cent on last season’s export total.

The committee, which represents 84 per cent of Chile’s cherry export volume, advised that the forecast had a 3 per cent statistical margin for error.

To date, 13,222 tonnes of fresh cherries have been shipped to various markets during the 2015/16 campaign – well down on the 42,620 tonnes exported during the same period last year. This is partly due to the production losses caused by the adverse climate and partly because the season is running some 10-14 days later than last year.

Ronald Bown, president of exporter association Asoex, said the production problems had come “as a sharp blow to producers, especially to small and medium sized growers who have seen a large part of their efforts to recover from previous poor seasons wiped out”.

The committee’s president, Cristián Tagle, added that while the latest forecast was based on technical evaluations, it was possible that “the final losses at the end of the season could be somewhat higher since in some regions practically all of the crop had been wiped out while other growers had lost more than 70 per cent of their harvest”.