Southern African citrus growers have expressed cautious optimism about prospects for the 2016 season – despite the drought.
Lemon exports are the big performers and are expected to continue their growth trend, with an increase of 7% estimated for 2016, translating into a total volume of 16.1m cartons.
The navel orange crop is also cause for optimism, estimated to be up by just over 2% to 25.1m cartons.
Grapefruit exports, however, are one of the big losers - down by 23% from 2015’s record export – but for soft citrus many new orchards are coming into production this year and total exports are expected to grow by 12%.
