The opening of the US market to fresh Chilean oranges and grapefruit is expected to prompt a re-distribution of the country’s citrus exports this season, according to the Chilean Fruit Intelligence System (Simfruit).
Total Chilean citrus sendings to the US are forecast to grow by 7 per cent to around 40,267 tonnes, Simfruit said, at the expense of Europe and Asia.
“Access to the US orange market is a great opportunity for Chile, particularly given the country’s high level of orange consumption and reduced competition in comparison to Europe,” Simfruit explained.
“At the same time, this opportunity presents a big challenge in terms of the demanding import restrictions placed on Chilean oranges by the USDA and APHIS. Furthermore, the opening up of this market at the beginning of April, has not given some producers enough time to put in place the necessary modifications in the management of their groves in order to access the US.”
Chile is expected to pull out all the stops to ships the largest volume possible of oranges to the US this season – a move which will reduce exports to traditional markets like Europe and Asia. This deficit may in part be covered by South Africa which can easily access both markets, according to Simfruit.
Simfruit estimates that Southern Hemisphere orange exports will fall slightly in 2009 to 1.3m tonnes (excluding Australia), down 2.9 per cent on last year.
Chile’s orange crop is expected to start during week 21 in the northern-most region of Ovalle with early varieties including Fukumoto. The central zone will enter harvesting at the beginning of July along with late varieties in the north of the country.
