Hortgro at Interpera 2012: South African pears

At Interpera 2012 (15th June in Lleida, Spain), Jacques du Preez, pome and stone fruit product manager at Hortgro, an organization of fruit and vegetable producers in South Africa, reported data about production and trade of pears in his country.

Hortgro is responsible for administrative services and financial administration, as well as operational industry services such as transformation and training, information, communication and social programmes. Hoertgro communicates with government authorities and other interest groups on behalf of several groupings in protecting producers' interests.

In South Africa, on 76,425 hectares of land, 32% (23,508ha) is cultivated with grape vine, 29% apples, 15% pears, 10% peaches, 6% plums, 5% apricots, etc.

South Africa produces a volume of 360,000 tons got from 11,561 hectares. 2% is aimed to drying process, 19% to local consumers, 30% to industry processing and the remaining 49% is exported for a value of 149 million Euro.

Most popular varieties are: Triumph Packham (29%), Forelle (26%), Williams Bon Chretien (25%), Abate Fetel (6%) and others (14%).

Distribution of pear trees according to the varieties and age: in yellow 0-3 years, in red 4-10 years, in blue 11-15 years, in green 16-25 years and in purple more than 25 years.

Data about export of South African pears (2011) aimed to different markets: in orange European Union and Russia, in red the Far East and Asia, in blue Great Britain, in green the Middle East, in purple the USA and Canada, in yellow Africa.

In 2010, South Africa was ninth (1.6%) on world pear production scale (22.6 million tons). In the first place there was China (more than 15 million tons), then Italy, the USA, Argentina, Spain, Korea, India, Turkey, South Africa, Japan, etc.

Main countries exporting pears: South Africa is fifth.

Competition charts of the main pear producer countries: from the left, general competition, the production efficiency one, facilities and input, financial and of the market. South Africa is third for efficiency and nineth in the general chart. But where is Italy?

Trend of world consumption of pears per-capite in 2008-2010 (in dark red) compared to 1998-2000 (in orange). The highest consumption is recorded in Asia (8.19 kg) and in the European Union (5.35 kg), which is in decline compared to the previous period. In South Africa a drop is recorded in per-capite consumption of pears.

Trend of export prices (red line) and domestic prices (yellow line) in real terms.

Export of South African pears: sale prices indicated byJacques du Preez are: € 15.82/12.5 kg. They are distribuited in the following way(from above): cost of receiver .64 (17%), receiver's fee 1.47 (9%), shipping costs 0.97 (6%), shipping charges 2.16 (14%),exporter's fee 0.93 (6%), local costs 0.62 (4%) and packaging 7 (44%).

Employment trend (orange) and minimum wage (red line) for the South African sector of pears.

Cost of pear trees of one hectare in South Africa is about 22,666 Euro, from the second to the fourth year it is 5,440 Euro for administration costs, and from the fifth year it is 18,209 Euro.