Too early to tell impact of drought on fruit exports

There’s no point in tossing
around percentage figures
for El Nino or drought
damage to SA fruit crops,
according to Cape-based
Werner van Rooyen of the
Fresh Produce Exporters’
Forum – whose members
account for about 90% of
fresh fruit exported from SA.
“These drought conditions
are only in northern regions
of the country, and it’s still
far too early to forecast a
rainless season,” he told
FTW. “Although we do take
note of it.”
And fruit exports only
really start to take off after
mid summer, so estimating
fruit export losses to drought
makes even less sense,
according to Van Rooyen.
And his gut feeling? “I’m
not too worried (about a fullscale
drought),” he said.
But one thing he was
adamant about was that
the whole issue of inherent
water shortage in SA had to
be an important part of the
thinking both in industry
and the government.
“Because there’s one
thing you can be sure of,”
said Van Rooyen, “we are
definitely going to get short
of water.”
And this, he added,
needed to be taken into
account in government’s
infrastructure
development plans for
the future, while the fruit
industry needed
to expand its
monitoring
and waterpreservation
and management
strategies.