Top fruit growers in the Ceres Valley, South Africa, are estimated to have lost 63 per cent of total export volumes after the worst hailstorms in 60 years last November.
Grower group Ceres Fruit Growers (CFG) said that around 2.5 million cartons have been potentially lost from the area, with pears accounting for almost 600,000 lost cartons, and apples around 1.9 million.
The effect of hail damage on fruit has been monitored since the storms, with tonnage estimates dropping each month as the extent of the damage became clear.
The latest estimate, in January 2014, for total tonnage of apples and pears is 54,728, a 32 per cent drop from this time last year.
The original estimate for November 2013 volumes was 89,852 tonnes, which fell to 64,830 after the hail in December, before the further drop in January.
Fruit with blemishes caused by hail, which is no longer fit for the fresh category, will now go for fruit processing.
But growers will still sustain losses as inputs were calculated based on higher fresh returns, rather than lower juice prices.
CFG manager of producer services, Frederick Odendaal, said: “As a result of the hail we will only receive 15 per cent of the potential tonnage we had planned for before the hail on braeburn, 85 per cent will go to processing.”
He added that producers have told retailers they will need to source braeburn from elsewhere, such as New Zealand or Chile.
Odendaal said growers were not covered by insurance, as it is not deemed cost-effective in an area which is not usually prone to hail.
He said: “The growers do not normally insure as the access payment (loss they have to carry) is normally 30 per cent before any money is paid out to them.In a normal year the hail damages per farm would not reach more than 30 per cent making it not viable to insure.”
However, in some cases the hail damage in November wiped out up to 90 per cent of crops, three times that needed for an insurance payout.
Odendaal said: “We will need insurance for the next crop. If we get hail like that next year we won’t be able to cope. We are going to try and work out a deal with the insurers.”
He added that as well as damage to the fruit itself, in some cases the bark has also been harmed which takes longer to recover.
In January, Gys Du Toit, production managing director at leading grower Dutoit Agri, told Eurofruit that losses from hail damaged fruit could reach R1bn.
CFG is a subsidiary of the Ceres Group, which has a 50 per cent share in marketer Tru-Cape alongside producer group Two-A-Day. Ceres Group also has a 20 per cent share in logistics firm Link Supply Chain Management.
