This year’s Mexican mango deal has been hit by unusually bad weather, making for a challenging season ahead, according to local sources.
“Originally, we forecast an abundant crop in comparison to 2009,” Roger Gay of grower-exporter Cocanmex told Fruitnet.com.
“But the weather has been very unusual so far this year. It has been raining a lot in the Michoacán and Sinaloa regions, which usually don’t experience rainfall during the November to May period. It’s definitely an El Niño year.”
As a result, Mr Gay says 2010 could potentially be a “disastrous” season for the Mexican mango industry.
“Most trees were already flowering when the rains started,” he explained. “We can’t tell what the impact will be right now, but it’s not looking promising.”
In 2009 (which went down as another poor season), Mexico exported some 55-60m cartons of mangoes, of which 45m cartons were shipped to the US – Mexico’s main market for the fruit.
