Grapefruit producers started the commercial season that takes place between May and July both domestically and abroad.
They expect the price for a kilo of grapefruit will range between $1.50 and $2.50 pesos during this period, which would be similar to the last seven years.
"The commercial window has opened and there will be good prices, but not as good as seven years ago, when it was much better and there wasn't an increase of over 100 percent on inputs such as diesel, gasoline and fertilizers," said Marcelino Alvarez Ochoa, state president of the grapefruit producers.
He said the producers from Michoacan would be able to maintain prices as long as the production from Veracruz didn't enter the market, "because once the competition enters the market prices will decrease to 20 cents a kilo," he stated.
Despite this good moment for producers, the representative said they continued to lose 40 percent of their production because Michoacan wasn't industrialized, despite the support they have sought from the federation to create a project of this type in Michoacan.
"We gave the Secretariat of Economy (SE) a project to industrialize grapefruit in May 25, 2014 but so far we have been given no answer, not even a negative one; thus, we have sought to have an audiences with the representatives of those agencies but they still haven't responded," he said.
Despite this situation, he said they would submit the project to the SE again this year to see if they got lucky. "We are ready, we only hope to an opportunity opens because it is really urgent for the sector to be able to add value to the fruit," he said.
Source: avozdemichoacan.com.mx