“With all the new avocado plantings, we were hoping for a bigger crop, but we’ve heard of quite a lot of damage from the hail which struck an unusually widespread area across Mpumalanga and Limpopo in December,” says Clive Garrett, chairperson of the South African Avocado Growers’ Association.
The latest crop estimate is 15.5 million cartons (4 kg).
“Apart from the hail earlier in the season, I have not heard of any damage to the avocado crop from the rain. The early rains were good for the sizing of the crop. In Limpopo we haven’t had rain for a few days now, we have beautiful sunny skies, hot and humid, exactly what we expect from this time of the year.”
Avocado growers would much prefer some dry weather now that the harvest has started: early varieties for the domestic market and, within the next week or two, for export, initially mostly Fuerte and Maluma Hass.
“Those producers who are able to get into the European market early, are looking at a good market which is fairly empty. Prices are quite good in Europe at the moment,” he says.
“The Chileans have just about finished their avocado season, likewise Israel and Spain. Some Colombian fruit is still left on the market and very small volumes are coming from Peru. Normally South Africa’s window for exports to the EU is from week 8 to week 20 or week 22, and then the big volumes from Peru arrive.”
Most of South Africa’s export avocados still go to Europe, and a limited amount to the Middle East where the avocado market is still small.
South Africa has applied for avocado access to China, the United States of America, India, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico; concentrating its efforts on the first four countries.
“We’re still fighting the good fight for market access,” Clive notes.
For more information:
Clive Garrett
South African Avocado Growers’ Association
Tel: +27 15 306 6240
Email: clive@zz2.co.za
https://avocado.co.za/