The State of Sonora produced fewer table grapes for export than projected. Marco Antonio Camou Loera, the president of the Association of Table Grape Producers, said they expected to produce 25 million boxes for export but had only achieved 21.4 million boxes, a similar quantity as last year.
This low production, he said, was due to various factors, such as the shortage of labor, the increase in input prices -like fertilizers-, and weather issues that didn't allow the grapes to reach the calibers producers expected.
“As sizes were smaller than expected, we needed more bunches to fill the boxes. We used to fill them with 24 bunches, but now we needed 34,” he said.
The main markets are the United States and Canada, which also receive Chilean grapes; however, their delayed arrival in the US market led to a decrease in prices and the Sonoran grapes had low sales.
In this campaign, in addition to exporting 21.4 million boxes, 2.5 million boxes were distributed in the national market, a significantly lower number than the 3.5 million boxes distributed last year.
Source: elimparcial.com