Even though the municipality of Paracuaro was officially declared a zone of low prevalence of fruit flies in January 2015, allowing it to export fruits -such as mango- without restrictions to the United States, this season was not very good as only nearly 5,400 tons of the approximately 9,000 tons of mango produced were exported, while the remaining 3,600 tons stayed in the domestic markets.
Manuel Martinez Vazquez, representative of the grapefruit and mango producers from Paracuaro, said mango prices had been well below expectations, to the extent that producers hadn't been able to recover their investment. In order to cover operating costs, producers should have exported the mango at a minimum price of four to five pesos per kilogram. However, prices dropped to 1 peso 20 cents at the export peak starting April; a phenomenon that had not occurred in recent years.
Martinez Vazquez stated mango had been traded at these prices because the cold and snowy weather in the United States, their main consumer, had lasted until early May. However, he said, that was just his guess, as he hadn't performed any research. The representative also said that, in order to avoid this scenario in the future, the producers had begun cultural practices in the fields, conducting sanitation pruning, weeding, and fertilization based on soil testing, among other activities. The idea is to wait until September and October to induce early flowering and get fruit from January to mid-March, when the production is low and has a good price, he said.
Source: Cambio de Michoacán