Avocado production in Spain has enjoyed a strong season in 2009, leading growers in the region of Valencia to consider diversification into the crop.
Producers in the principal growing area of Málaga in southern Spain exported 32,000 tonnes of Hass, Bacon and Fuerte this year, generating some €62 million (£53.6m) in sales.
The season ran from Christmas until May, with prices for Hass around €8 for a 4kg carton until April but running as high as €10-11 a carton in May.
Benjamin Faulí, agronomist at producers’ association Asaja Málaga, said: “The season was good but short and prices were maintained right to the end of the campaign. A lot of growers felt it was a shame that the campaign didn’t go on longer, but if it had, I think we would have had a very different situation. No sooner had we finished than Peru came on the market with 2,000-3,000 tonnes a week and with Hass from South Africa and Kenya, the market clogged up and we saw prices at historic lows of €3-3.50 a carton.”
Faulí warned that producers will have to be wary in coming seasons of third countries encroaching onto the Spanish season with unseasonable early sendings.
Asaja Málaga is looking to create a specific avocado trade organisation with a view to promoting the product and increasing consumption, in ways similar to those achieved by Chilean and South African growers and exporters in the UK.
And Faulí wants to see yields increased. He said: “It is fundamentally important that we go from output of 7,000-8,000t a hectare to 13,000-14,000t. The only way to counter any tendency towards declining prices and continue to be competitive is to increase production yields.”
Meanwhile, to the north-east in Valencia, producers in parts of the region unaffected by frosts are starting to diversify into avocados and away from citrus. Over the past five years, growers’ association Ava-Asaja calculates that more than 40ha have been given over to new plantings of avocados. Part of the attraction of the crop is that it is less labour-intensive than citrus, less prone to incidence of pest and disease and has a harvesting window of four months.
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