Northern regions of South Africa have had more than their fair share of rain during the past month, frustrating citrus growers who are keen to get their 2010 campaign up and running.
According to the country’s Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA), those northern citrus-producing regions have been affected by abnormal rain during the past two weeks, causing a delay to the packing of grapefruit and lemons.
This has had a subsequent impact on the flow of product to the ports of Maputo and Durban, and is expected to affect volumes of fruit scheduled for ships due to load during the next two weeks.
The CGA says the rain has now abated and that harvesting and packing is expected to return to normal.
Meanwhile, citrus growers are also keeping their eye on a possible strike by transport workers which is due to start the week commencing 10 May, a move which may cause serious disruption to the export programme.
Up to 50,000 workers linked to the parastatal company Transnet are expected to strike from Monday, after negotiations between the trade unions and Transnet broke down last week.
Senior Transnet officials said on Thursday that the company would shut down its services if the strike goes ahead. This will affect more than 2m daily commuters, as well as movement through the country’s port terminals.
“As in the past it may be expected that the country’s main container terminals, in particular Pier 1 and Durban Container Terminal (DCT) at Durban, will be targeted more strongly than other terminals,” says the CGA.
The group added: “The Durban container terminals handle 65 per cent of the country’s import or export containers. Should the strike continue it may create a backlog of container activity entering and leaving port terminals.”
The CGA has advised shippers to plan for contingencies in order to alleviate possible congestion.
So far, less than 5 per cent of the expected crop of 92m cartons have been packed and around 1.5m cartons shipped to export markets.
“In general, prices have been better than 2009; but the exchange rate means that returns back on the farm will be less,” said a spokesperson for the CGA.
The latest CGA estimate predicts the following export volumes:
Grapefruit – 12.6m cartons, compared with last year’s 13.7m cartons
Soft citrus – 7.5m cartons, compared with last year’s 6m cartons
Lemons – 9m cartons, compared with last year’s 7.7m cartons
Valencia oranges – 41.3m cartons, compared with last year’s 35.3m cartons
Navel oranges – 21.5m cartons, compared with last year’s 19.1m cartons
