The South African citrus season is well underway and current predictions are that the export volumes from this year’s harvest are likely to be very similar to 2008.
The exception to this is the grapefruit harvest, as this year producers are expecting a normal crop after a particularly light crop last year.
The satsuma season commenced in early April and the first of these are currently on supermarket shelves in the UK. Pieter Naudé of Denau Farm in the Western Cape said: “Soft citrus has experienced a good pre-season period with successful flowering and good ripening conditions, so our fruit is looking healthy.
“We are currently harvesting satsumas and the clementine harvest will start in the next three weeks,” he added.
The bulk of South Africa’s soft citrus has traditionally been produced for export to the UK and during the past few years the North American market is proving to be an increasingly lucrative market for soft citrus producers from the Western Cape Region.
In relation to other South African fruit sectors, the citrus industry is by far the country’s biggest production sector, exporting up to 70 million 15kg cartons of citrus annually. After Spain, South Africa ranks as the world’s second-biggest citrus exporter.
As producers for export, South African citrus growers have always had to contend with the fluctuations in the exchange rate but, during the past two harvests, returns to growers have come under further pressure as the input costs for preparing and exporting the harvest such as fuel, fertiliser prices and chemical prices have increased by up to 25 per cent.
Pieter Nortje, a director of Citrus Growers’ Association of South Africa, said: “This is the most expensive crop we have ever prepared.”
The tenuous situation is made worse by the international credit crunch, with markets also under pressure. Justin Chadwick, ceo of the Citrus Growers’ Association, said: “In our meetings with the exporters, the clear message that we have received is to send only the best quality of fruit to the markets this year and to work hard at getting the fruit sold.”
