Even as the world strives to go organic for health reasons, the market remains elusive pushing growers to abandon the cultivation of organic fruits.
Orangic, a grower and exporter of organic citrus in Jordan, is one such company which contemplates on reducing its organic acreage as it hasn’t been able to get enough clients for the fruits.
According to Issa Halabi of Orangic, the company which went into growing organic citrus in 2009, will cut its acreage from 50ha to 10 ha next year as, “It has been really difficult to get clients for the organic citrus,” he explains.
With this reduction, Halabi says their production of organic citrus is expected to go down from around 1,000 tons to 200 tons. Even though Orangic's main target market was the Gulf region, the company has only managed to successfully export to the Emirates while the rest of the fruits are sold locally.
“We started converting to organic citrus in 2009, we got full certification two years ago but things haven’t been so good for us, our main target destination was the Gulf, things didn’t work out as expected. We did not get enough clients for our produce so we have been forced to convert our production back to conventional growing; so we plan to do so as from next year,” explains Halabi.
According to Halabi, despite the war in Iraq and Syria, the company hasn’t experienced any challenges in exporting organic citrus as they were not target markets for organic citrus; adding that their only challenge has been getting enough clients and the right prices for the produce.
“Our main problem has been getting the right clients with the best offers in terms of prices, on the other hand we face stiff competition regionally from South Africa, Italy, Egypt and Spain, whose prices are a bit cheaper than ours,” explains Halabi.
Orangic grows pomelo, navels, lemon, clementine, mandarins and oranges. The company is gearing up for the big season which comes next month and will run through until mid-May.
For more information: Orangic, a grower and exporter of organic citrus in Jordan, is one such company which contemplates on reducing its organic acreage as it hasn’t been able to get enough clients for the fruits.
According to Issa Halabi of Orangic, the company which went into growing organic citrus in 2009, will cut its acreage from 50ha to 10 ha next year as, “It has been really difficult to get clients for the organic citrus,” he explains.
With this reduction, Halabi says their production of organic citrus is expected to go down from around 1,000 tons to 200 tons. Even though Orangic's main target market was the Gulf region, the company has only managed to successfully export to the Emirates while the rest of the fruits are sold locally.
“We started converting to organic citrus in 2009, we got full certification two years ago but things haven’t been so good for us, our main target destination was the Gulf, things didn’t work out as expected. We did not get enough clients for our produce so we have been forced to convert our production back to conventional growing; so we plan to do so as from next year,” explains Halabi.
According to Halabi, despite the war in Iraq and Syria, the company hasn’t experienced any challenges in exporting organic citrus as they were not target markets for organic citrus; adding that their only challenge has been getting enough clients and the right prices for the produce.
“Our main problem has been getting the right clients with the best offers in terms of prices, on the other hand we face stiff competition regionally from South Africa, Italy, Egypt and Spain, whose prices are a bit cheaper than ours,” explains Halabi.
Orangic grows pomelo, navels, lemon, clementine, mandarins and oranges. The company is gearing up for the big season which comes next month and will run through until mid-May.
Issa Halabi
Orangic
Mob: 00962-7955-206-55
Email: ihalabi@go.com.jo
www.go.com.jo