Argentina: Citrus Slowed

Avatar for Matt Hopkins By Scott C. Lucas|23 April 2007

The decrease is attributable to a long draught in the northeast citrus producing region, which has been particularly harmful for tangerine and orange plantations, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA-FAS). Early tangerine varieties such as okitsu have not reached commercial size, and may not even be suitable for domestic sale. USDA-FAS cites sources in the industry saying that 50% of the Okitsu and 80% of the Nova tangerines would remain on the trees due to their small size, and that 40% of navel oranges will not reach the commercial size.

Only 5% of the citrus planted area in northeast Argentina is irrigated. For farms that irrigate, the combination of dry weather and irrigation resulted in a much better quality fruit than normal, since the lack of rainfall has entailed less development of fungi.

USDA-FAS forecasts lemon production at 1.2 MMT for 2006, down 7.7% from 2005. The grapefruit crop in northwestern Argentina will not be good for 2006. Sources in the industry quoted the harvest at 150,000 MT, 11% lower than in 2005. Tangerine and orange crops for 2006 are estimated to be at 380,000 MT for tangerines and 700,000 MT for oranges, which would be 11.3% and 9% less than in 2005, respectively.