The 2016/17 Spanish lemon campaign has got off to a slow start due to the heavy stocks of Southern Hemisphere fruit.
Lemon and grapefruit interprofessional Ailimpo said exports of fresh lemons for the September to December period were down 12 per cent on 2014/15 – the last ‘normal’ production year. Around 25 per cent fewer lemons went for processing in the same period due to lower availability.
In spite of the slow start, returns at grower level have been high during the early season, Ailimpo noted.
“Rains in December and January were positive in order to get good sizes,” the association said, adding that snow and low temperatures during the third week of January had not caused any damage to production.
Reaffirming its previous forecast from September, the interprofessional said the 2016/17 crop would weigh in at 980,000 tonnes, a return to normal volumes after last season’s unusually large harvest. In the case of grapefruit, production is down slightly at 67,000 tonnes.
Ailimpo said it expects sales activity to pick up in the second half of the season.
