Jan Greyling
CONTRIBUTOR
South Africa is way more than halfway through the 2022 citrus season. However, packing is lagging previous years and by the end of July stood at 62 million 15 kg cartons, compared with 67 million in 2021 and 70 million in 2020. It is especially slow fruit ripening that is costing the industry this year.
In total South Africa is expected to export 166,8 million cartons. Last year resulted in a total export total of 161 million 15 kg cartons.
By the end of July 2022, around 50 million cartons had still to be packed and shipped in the northern production area. It was estimated that about the same numbers applied to the southern growing regions. The majority of these were destined to be going out from the Durban Port in the Indian Ocean.
Cutbacks
According to the Citrus Growers’ Association (GCA) exports of class 2 navels have been cut back, and the navel export estimate has been adjusted from 28,7 million to 27,2 million cartons. The same could happen to unpopular and large counts of late mandarin.
The grapefruit estimate has been reduced from 16,8 to 15,7 million cartons and it is possible, says an exporter, that much of the grapefruit still hanging on the trees will have to be sent to juice because of constrained availability of vessel space.
The soft citrus export estimate was at 34,1 million cartons at the halfway mark of the season.
At the request of the CGA, some of the citrus varietals supplied crop and export estimations by the end of Week 27:
Valencias
“An estimated 57,6 million (15 kg) cartons of valencias are predicted to be exported in 2022, which will be a 2,6 million increase from the 55 million cartons shipped last season. However, the final number shipped could decrease depending on market conditions towards the end of the season, in particular narrowing market windows which could make it difficult to ship remaining volumes.”
As usual, the aim of South African valencia packers was for China to hit the pre-Moon Festival market. According to the Chinese festival calendar, they usually have until the beginning of September before the peak of the market at about 10 September, whereafter prices start to decrease.
The pressure to get the valencias out in time has been putting more pressure on the ability of the Durban Port and, according to the CGA, on the steri-capacity of the already overloaded cold stores, which are running at full capacity this year.
Towards August two-thirds of the citrus crop were still on the trees. Theoretically, approximately a hundred million cartons still had to be handled by the system over the last 15 weeks of the citrus season. These were mostly grapefruit, valencias and the late mandarins.
Lemons
The prediction for these popular immune boosters was standing at 32,4 million 15 kg cartons to be exported to key markets by the middle of the current season – an increase of 1,4 million cartons compared to last year. Contributors to this increase include the first fruit from young trees in regions e.g. the Western Cape and Senwes in Limpopo. The cooler summer climate may, however, have contributed to fruit being smaller in certain areas impacting the final number of cartons packed and exported.
Navels
In line with its contribution in 2021, the estimate for these popular winter favourites showed 27,2 million cartons of 15 kg each expected to be exported by the end of the season. Hailstorms in areas such as the Eastern Cape Midlands led to a decrease in predicted estimates. On the contrary, good rains in regions like the Sundays River Valley have contributed to an estimated 9% growth in navel export volumes in the area.
Grapefruit
A range of external factors is expected to impact negatively the estimated 15,3 million cartons of 15 kg grapefruit which has been predicted to be exported in 2022. These include the Russian conflict in Ukraine due to Russia being a major importer of South African grapefruit. In addition, should fuel and shipping costs continue to escalate, PP fruit that is sent for processing and Class 2 grapefruit will not be exported which will reduce the final export total. Export figures across the different grapefruit categories are reflected in the tables below.
Mandarins
In this category, the preliminary forecast was in the region of 33,7 million 15 kg cartons for export to foreign markets in 2022. This estimate indicated a 2,8 million carton increase in the export performance of mandarin varietals packed and shipped in 2021.
For easy citrus export comparison, a year-to-date analysis, towards the end of July, of shipped figures, based on the country destination in 2020, 2021 and 2022 is provided by the Citrus Growers’ Association.