A late winter desert heatwave and record winter precipitation across Central California have combined to significantly delay the start of the 2017 Santa Maria and Salinas vegetable deals.
According to industry reports, daytime temperatures in California’s Imperial Valley and nearby Yuma, Arizona soared to 35C in mid-March – abnormally high for that time of the year – bringing an early end to the winter vegetable season.
Further north, however, Central California growers had been slogging through waterlogged fields during January and February, attempting to plant the first crops of the season with little success.
The consequence of these weather events has been a major interruption in vegetable production from Central California – the primary source for the North American market this time of the year – and a dramatic rise in FOB prices for many key categories. Expectations are that the production gap may last through May and possibly into June.
“The broccoli crown market is around US$45 (per carton) at the moment,” said Phil Hartman of Cal-Ex Trading in mid-April. “This is for a regular domestic pack. I can’t recall FOB’s ever being this high.”
Hartman’s inference was that broccoli crowns packed for Asian export markets that require strict specifications would have been far higher – if the product would have been available.
“It’s all due to planting gaps,” said Hartman. “I’m not expecting any kind of normal production from either Santa Maria or Salinas through at least May and maybe into June. There may be a few spikes in supply here and there but not much otherwise.”
Hartman noted that the limited supplies of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and other key vegetable categories currently available from Central California are being “gobbled up” by processors or hoarded by growers attempting to fulfill contractual obligations.
“Everything is sky high in price right now,” said Hartman. “The word is that some processors are trying to buy up fields [of vegetables] for US$45,000 and more.”
