The Citrus Management Committee (CGC), the association that brings private citrus exporters together in Spain, has lamented the confusion generated in the markets by the "unilateral and non-consensual" assessments reported by the new president of the Interprofesional Citrícola Española (Intercitrus), Rafael Cervera.
In an interview granted to the agency Efeagro and published on 26 February, Cervera had given an assessment on the situation of the campaign and predicted that it "would not last until April" because, he said, "there are only 550,000 tonnes left to be harvested." However, the technical services of this organization believe that, based on the most conservative estimations, the country still has at least 2.2 million tonnes left to be harvested and marketed. With these figures, the CGC says that despite the expected fall in the domestic production, the supply "of mandarins and oranges, both to the EU and to certain third markets, should be normal until the end of the citrus campaign. And the season, "just like every year," should last until well into the month of July or even August.
According to the analysis carried out by the association of exporters, at least 1,047,000 tonnes of citrus fruits should still be exported in what remains of the 2017/2018 campaign. Of this amount, 604,000 tonnes would correspond to oranges and 140,000 tonnes to late mandarins (Nadorcott, Tango, Orri, Ortanique, etc.). But to these quantities it would be necessary to add the production intended for the domestic market, which based on the official records of the last five campaigns, is estimated to be no lower than 706,000 tonnes during the period at hand (March-August). In order to reach the estimated 2.2 million tonnes globally, it would also be necessary to take into account the volume that will be acquired by the juice processing industry, which has been estimated at no less than 420,000 tonnes (362,000 tonnes of oranges and 58,000 tonnes of lemons).