Valencia citrus shortfall

Citrus production in the main Spanish growing area of Valencia is forecast to fall by 25 per cent on last season, with the satsuma crop likely to be a massive 47 per cent down. According to figures released by the agriculture office of the regional executive, total citrus output is expected to fall by more than one million tonnes to 3.2mt. Strong winds that brought warm, dry conditions in April, as well as low humidity in May and June affected trees and fruit set was low, causing the loss of volume.Orange production is forecast to fall by 25 per cent, with Navel volumes down 24 per cent and within that Navelinas down 31.7 per cent on last season. Overall clementine production is also forecast lower, but the picture is mixed variety by variety. In early clems, Marisol, Clemenules and Oroval are declining as other early types take over and there is a marked increase in the hybrid types. “This should favour the start of the season, as there will be almost 300,000t less production of early easy peelers and oranges so there is no reason why there should not be good returns to growers,” said regional agriculture minister Maritina Hernández. Grower groups in the region are calling for severe penalties for those operators that jump the gun and try to market fruit that is immature. “Once again, some operators have started selling thousands of kilos of Clausellina, Okitsu, Oronules and Marisol of insufficient quality,” said Cristóbal Aguado, president of Ava-Asaja. “This makes the start of the season very hard, as it cheats consumers, who stop buying – and that punishes producers. We demand quality norms are upheld.” The regional executive is already carrying out inspections and any fruit that does not meet the grade is being withdrawn from the supply chain. Ken Smith, trading director at Greencell Ltd, expects there to be a knock-on effect of the reduced volumes in the UK. “Satsumas will start and finish early,” he said. “Quality and sizing are good, but clementines are also down and in Turkey the satsuma crop is down too – to the level of two years ago.”