This year’s harvest estimates for South African apples and pears point to a very similar season to last year, with apple production pegged at around 23.5 million cartons and pears at 12.5m cartons. “Our harvest is certainly looking promising, as volumes, fruit size and quality look set to deliver a good crop,” says Stefan Conradie, product manager for South African top fruit and stonefruit at the Deciduous Fruit Producers’ Trust.
Bon Chretien is usually the first pear variety harvested, and this year the crop has been good in terms of both quality and fruit size, meaning producers have been able to export a larger percentage of their volumes than was initially expected.
In line with production throughout the southern hemisphere this year, the start of the South African top-fruit season was approximately seven to 14 days later than during previous harvests. However, while this affected early varieties, the warm summer weather has ripened mid-to-late season fruit somewhat faster, and the first two weeks of March are set to see a substantial peak in production. “Fortunately, our infrastructure is geared to cope, as we have sufficient capacity to store these volumes as they are harvested,” says Nigel Mudge, chairman of the South African Apple and Pear Growers’ Association. “This also allows the industry to sell fruit according to market needs.”
This catch-up effect has also had a slight effect on sugar levels of early fruit. “South African apples are usually known for their high sugars in comparison with fruit produced elsewhere, and although the cool spring has reduced sugar levels of our earliest varieties, the mid-to-late season fruit will have its usual brix levels,” explains Mudge.
Coloration on the Rosemarie pear and Royal Gala apple crops has been somewhat disappointing, as the high temperatures during January and early February did not allow for good colour development. During the past two weeks, however, the Western Cape has been experiencing the first signs of autumn, with cooler evening temperatures, and this augurs well for colour development on later blush pears and bi-coloured apples. Lower temperatures create ideal conditions for the final ripening process of these varieties.
The Western Cape received good rainfall in the winter just gone, and water shortages look unlikely this year, according to producers. During November last year, flooding in the Langkloof production region (around 400km east of Cape Town) damaged dams, and although the damage was quite severe to some production units, the influence on the industry’s total production has not been too severe. But there have been reports of serious hail damage to fruit in the region during the past fortnight.
After several years of diminishing returns, and with rising production costs and climatic challenges piling the pressure on South African top-fruit producers, the good returns growers have seen during the past two seasons have proven to be something of a turning point for the South African industry - welcome news following the loss of 4,000 hectares of top-fruit orchards during the past seven years. “A good barometer for the outlook of our producers is to look at what plant material they have on order, and at present the order books for young trees from our nurseries are reported to be mostly full for the next few years,” says Mudge, adding that last year’s good returns had been corroborated by financial institutions, which have confirmed that debt levels have dropped considerably.
There is a new sense of optimism in the industry, and this has led to greater investment in supply chain infrastructure. This positive turn of events is largely due to the weakening of the South African rand during the past year, and the current exchange rate bodes well for this year’s harvest.
One of the top-fruit industry’s great successes during the past year has been the establishment and operation of Joint Marketing Forums for the fruit industry. These organisations play a vital role in providing growers and shippers with current market information, as well as swapping production and marketing information with South Africa’s southern-hemisphere counterparts and competitors. The forums include representatives from growers and shippers, as well as logistical and quality control service providers. They meet regularly and are able to monitor projected supply patterns from South Africa and other countries of origin, allowing them to make strategic marketing decisions, as well as decisions which could pre-empt oversupply to certain markets.
“All the sectors of our industry are really supporting this initiative, and in terms of keeping our producers and shippers informed, we have certainly taken a big step forward,” says Conradie. This closer level of co-operation between southern-hemisphere top-fruit-producing countries has been of benefit to fruit industries across all countries in planning market strategies and development.
This is also the second season that the South African industry has been able to produce accurate crop estimates, due to improved information-gathering systems. “For nine years following our industry’s deregulation, we did not have accurate crop estimates, but we are now able to present our industry, as well as our receivers, with this vital information,” says Mudge. “We are pleased to say that thus far, the actual harvest figures are coming out very close to these estimates.”
The South African fruit industry and the Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) are engaging with the South African government on the issue of standardising pallet ID codes to the internationally used SSCC pallet codes. “At present, we have to get a lot of operators to transfer information to us, which we then have to collate,” says Conradie. “Once the entire supply chain is using the same coding system, the capture of information will be much faster, and we will be able to save four days in our information-gathering process.”
Another interesting development for the South African top-fruit industry has been the growth in recent years of the domestic market. “During the past three years, the volume of apples that we handle has grown from 1m cartons to 4m,” says Johan Van Deventer, managing director of Freshmark, the fresh produce division of South Africa’s Shoprite supermarket group. “This is largely due to the positive influence of increased spending power in our local market. Another important factor that is making the local market an attractive alternative to exports is increasing international demands in terms of accreditations, traceability, packaging and labelling, most of which the producer has to fund. For producers supplying local supermarkets, the price of the product, as well as the payment terms, are usually determined by the time the product is delivered, and this affords producers more security than with exported fruit, which is normally sold on consignment.”
A further positive for the industry is the current strong price that receivers are offered for juice, which has doubled over the past two years.
“At a production level we are seeing an increased awareness of soil health, and there is a definite trend amongst growers towards adopting biological farming methods,” says Peter Dall, consultant within the South African top-fruit industry and chairman of the International Pink Lady Alliance. “Many growers are returning pruned wood to the orchards as mulch and are making more use of biological fertilisers and integrated pest management (IPM) systems than before.” The industry also has a proactive Soil Health Research Programme that supports growers in these efforts, and records positive changes where these farming practices have been introduced.”
But while South African top-fruit prospects are certainly on the up, a growing shortage of seasonal labour is giving growers cause for concern. A boom in the local construction and tourism industries has seen a migration to those industries which offer permanent jobs and better security, as opposed to work that is only on offer during the harvest period. “This is not just a problem in South Africa, as growers in other parts of the world are reporting similar problems,” says Dall. “Although it is certainly a challenge, producers are managing to bring in the harvest - but they have to pay well above the minimum wage in order to secure labour.”
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