Spanish lemon and grapefruit promotional body Ailimpo is forecasting a recovery of the Spanish lemon crop this season.
According to the association’s president José Andrés López, production will rise to 810,000 tonnes. He said: “This figure will guarantee evenly staggered supply throughout the whole campaign to all our major markets. Production in all the major growing areas of Murcia, Alicante, Almería and Malaga will be considerably greater than last season’s levels.”
He described the 2007-08 production volume as an “anomaly” due to inclement climatic factors. Growers are facing the start of the campaign in a more positive mood. “The promising level of production volume means the whole sector is more optimistic,” said López. “We have very good quality this year, not just of Fino lemons but Verna too.”
The figures point to a “normal” production year. “We expect export sales of some 505,000t of lemons and pricing to be reasonable. Costs have gone up considerably across the board for inputs, labour, everything. There will not be an excess of production either so prices should be strong in our main markets in the EU,” López said.
Meanwhile, heavy rainfall in the Valencia region over the weekend is benefiting citrus crops as the easy-peel season gets under way. Valencia federation of co-operatives president Cirilo Arnandis said: “Although there are no official figures yet, unofficially the different co-ops are telling us that production levels are up on last season but not as high as two years ago.”
