Page 35 - SA Fruit Journal VOLUME 14

CITRUS: Looking back at Southern Hemisphere 2014 andforward to Northern Hemisphere 2014/15The 2014 season saw a drop of about 7% in the total citrus exports of the Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters (SHAFFE) member countries (Argentina, Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Peru and South Africa). The main contributors to this trend were severe droughts and freezing incidents in Argentina which caused lemon export volumes to plunge whilst 2013 Chile had its worst freeze in 50 years. In South Africa the grapefruit was down as expected from the alternating trend in production.johN eDmoNDSSouthern Europe was the biggest casualty of Argentina’s poor lemon crop. South Africa benefited but distributed its biggerexport volumes in similar proportions to last year with the exception of South East Asian exports which more than doubled, making them the second largest South African lemon market for lemons after the Middle East.The supply of Southern Hemisphere soft citrus to the Northern Hemisphere markets painted a relatively more stable picture al- though northern Europe and USA felt the effects of the South Americans’ troubles.SHAFFE member countries are showing more interest in the Asian region with South Africa seeking to reduce dependence on Europe in light of EU compliance demands with regard to citrus black spot interceptions. Australia orange exports in China felt the ef- fects of South Africa’s added focus in this region although Japan remains their lead-ing market. AlthoughSouth Africa dominatesthe SHAFFE orange ex-ports, there is competi-tion in the USA marketwhere Chile and South Africa remained rela- tively stable with Australia finishing around 22 per cent lower than last year in spite of the Australian dollar falling 20% against the U.S dollar. However the other SHAFFE coun- tries’ exports also benefited from weakening exchange rates.As with oranges, South Africa dominates the grapefruit offering with no meaningful comparison to the other SHAFFE members.Northern Europe and Japan continue to take the bulk of southern African grapefruit – although the volumes for both dropped in 2014; in Japan from 3.3 m to 3 m cartons and in northern Europe a more significant reduc- tion from 5.3 m to 3.5 m.Northern Hemisphere:Citrus production in the Northern Hemi- sphere is due to decline by approximately 4% in 2014/2015 to 28.7 million tons. Oranges are expected to be down 5% (17.3 million tons), soft citrus down by 1% (6.3 million tons), lemons will decrease by 5% (3.3 mil- lion tons) and while grapefruit will be down by 6% (1.6 million tons). The decline of pro- duction is more significant in the EU (-10%) than in other Mediterranean countries basin (-3%), leading to a shorter production in the Mediterranean by 7% compared to the previ- ous season. However, in spite of the produc- tion decrease, exports are expected to be less affected. In the USA production is predicted up by 2%.MARKTE 32 FEB | MAART 2015