This year's mango harvest will be record-breaking. For the first time since this tropical fruit started being grown in Malaga (it was first planted four decades ago), the total volume may reach 30,000 tonnes. In 2017, the harvest stood at around 20,600 tonnes, which means that there could be 33% more this time. We will have to wait and see how the weather behaves in August, since an excess of heat could cause part of the fruit to end up on the ground. The increase in production was something that was seen coming for a long time, due mainly to the expansion of the acreage in the province, and especially in the region of the Axarquía, where a lot of land, so far unproductive, has been transformed into plantations that are starting to bear fruit.
Spanish mango producers are based mainly in Malaga and fundamentally in the region of the Axarquía, as well as in the Costa Tropical of Granada. Currently, according to the Andalusian government, the acreage devoted to this crop in Andalusia stands at 3,227 hectares.
According to the president of the Spanish Association of Tropical Crop Producers, José Linares, this year's mango campaign has been delayed. Last year, however, it kicked off about two weeks early. Nevertheless, it all points to this year's season starting before the end of this month, around 20 August, with the earliest varieties grown in greenhouses.
The Tommy Atkins variety, considered the earliest of those grown in the open ground, will follow. Then it will be time for the Osteen, which is the most common in the province. The Kent and Keitt varieties, considered late, will follow later. The peak months of the harvest are September and October.
Linares stated that in Malaga's case, part of the increase in the harvest volume is a result of the entry into production of new plantations. In Malaga, the cultivation of mangoes has been growing at a quick pace for years, so it is expected that production will increase significantly in the next campaigns. At present, it is the second most important tropical crop in the province, only behind avocados.
Óscar Ramírez, manager of the tropical fruit trading company Trópico Spain, believes that the increase in the production has also been the result of a better setting during the flowering. "But above all, it is because the new plantations are already delivering significant volumes," said Ramírez, who believes the sector should still not have any problems to introduce the fruit into the markets, especially in Europe.
"We are the only mango producers in the European Union and our fruit has always been competitive thanks to its high quality. Our advantage is that we can harvest the fruit at its optimum point of ripeness, which guarantees a taste that competitors like Israel or Brazil are unable to deliver," said Ramírez.
Juan Antonio Reyes, manager of the Reyes Gutiérrez group, a company specialised in the production and marketing of tropical fruits (mangoes and avocados), both national and imported, agrees with this. "Quality is our great advantage and that means that there are already supermarket chains that are interested in having Spanish mangoes on their shelves," said Reyes.
European consumers are usually able to distinguish Spanish mangoes from those of other countries, as most marketers don't wash them, which causes the fruit to have a whitish film on its skin.
For now, it is not clear how prices will behave this year. In the previous campaign, they stood at around 1.30 Euro per kilo for almost the entire campaign, rising by the time the harvest was ending. Ramírez believes that in addition to the increase in the production, the supply from Israel and Brazil will also have an impact on prices. "It would be most desirable for them to remain stable, because that is what the markets want," said the manager of Trópico Spain.
Spain's mango production goes mostly to the foreign market. In 2017, three countries accounted for 74% of mango exports from Andalusia (Portugal, with 32%, France, with 25%, and Germany, with 17%).
The agrarian transformation society Trops, based in the province of Malaga, is the main marketer and exporter of mangoes nationwide. Trops, which has some 2,300 members, accounts for more than 50 percent of the Spanish mango production, between 13 and 15 million kilos.
For years, researchers at the Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Horticulture (IHSM) La Mayora have been advocating the need for varietal diversification, instead of focusing on a single variety, as is currently the case (with the Osteen). The Malaga-based research centre believes that the introduction of new varieties would extend the campaign.
Source: diariosur.es
