Avocado growers have had to contend with severe hail, drought and excessive heat during fruit set which have led to fruit drop, smaller fruit and a lower harvest in a season that started ealier.The Tzaneen area is no exception, where Gubitz Boerdery is currently in the midst of their Hass harvest. “It’s significantly down, I’d say by about 45% in some orchards, because of the drought. We have dryland orchards, so we have to wait for the rain. Hopefully we’ll have a good winter and a better harvest next year,” says Martin Gubitz.
“The trees in our Politsi production area were really hurt by the hail last year and we had no harvest on the hail-damaged trees this year, which accounts for about 30% of our total harvest. It takes them about a year to recover from the hail damage.” Because these avocado orchards are in a mountainous area, on uneven terrain, hail netting isn’t a viable option, and furthermore this isn’t known as an area with high hail frequency.
The farming enterprise has its own exporting arm for the European market, Gubitz Export, where prices are still good. “It’s perhaps about R10 [€0.68] down per carton since the beginning of the season, since Peruvian production came onto the market, but it’s still good. We export as much of our production as possible, approximately 80%, to take advantage of the Rand’s position. The domestic market wouldn’t be able to absorb more avocados. Consumers first buy the basics and then consider other things like avocados.”
It also exports to the Far East through another exporter.
Gubitz Boerdery markets roughly 20% of its production on the local fresh produce markets. South African consumers are not yet fully sold on Hass avocados: the blackening of the skin as it attains ripeness, still reminds them of an overripe fruit, and green-skinned avocados are preferred for that reason. “We export a larger proportion of our Hass than the green-skinned and get a bit of a higher price on them, they’re more sought after overseas than the green-skins,” says Gubitz.
Fruits are smaller this year, probably another effect of the drought, according to Gubitz, but fortuitously European consumers prefer smaller avocados which can be eaten in a single sitting.
South Africa delivered 412 000 x 4kg cartons of Hass to the EU during week 19, slightly down from the same period last year. Green-skins from South Africa on the same market ran to 184,000 cartons last week.
For more information:
Martin Gubitz
Gubitz Boerdery
Tel: +27 82 395 9540
Email: gubspan@tzaneen.co.za