Photo: FW Archive
He said the outlook for pome fruit was bullish thanks to favourable climatic conditions leading to record fruit volumes at the start of 2022. However, everything went south when the war on Ukraine broke out, which exacerbated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on markets, logistics, and the economy.
Pienaar stated that he is starting the season cautiously optimistic and full of hope. He said, “There are many challenges, but we will try to get the right fruit of the right quality to the right markets, and control what we can.”
Towards the end of January, Hortgro estimated that apple exports could decrease by 1% this season from roughly 45,3 million (12,5kg-equivalent) cartons in the previous season to 44,8 million cartons. Pear exports were expected to drop 3% from 21,2 million cartons in the previous season to 20,6 million cartons this season.
Tru-Cape expects production to decline by 8% to 10% compared to the 2022 volumes, primarily due to the hail damages suffered in Ceres and to a lesser extent in the Langkloof, based on their current observations in the growing regions.
Pienaar added that farmers also had to contend with rising input costs and inflation, making production more difficult.
Load-shedding was also adding significantly to the burden. “It is still too early to estimate the cost of load-shedding on Tru-Cape and its farmers this season, but we are talking about [at least] millions of rands,” Pienaar said.
Pienaar said that efficiencies at the Port of Cape Town had greatly improved this year, but that the port had lost more operating hours thus far this year compared with the previous year due to unfavourable wind. In January, it had lost 55 hours more than in the corresponding time last year, and in February, it had lost 52 hours more operating hours than compared year-on-year.
“The winds are resulting in vessels being stuck for up to two weeks and in some leaving before they are loaded,” Pienaar said.
Besides this, consumers were under pressure because of rising inflation, especially in South Africa’s traditional markets, including the UK and EU.
“In the UK and EU, we have seen a trend towards more promotional buying, which has coincided with the rise of the discount stores. This trend towards promotional buying has also led to a move away from managed varieties, such as Pink Lady, Envy, Jazz and Kanzi, to run-of-the-mill varieties, such as Royal Gala,” Pienaar said.
“I don’t think retailers will be open to any new managed varieties in the next couple of seasons and farmers will have to carefully re-evaluate their cultivar package to ensure they have the best offerings.”
He explained that farmers needed to look at cultivars that were in demand on more than one market. “The trend is showing us that you could run into trouble if you produce a variety that is only in demand on one [market], such as Europe.”
Also, farmers needed to replace older varieties with improved cultivars that had better colour and pack-out rates to improve their income per hectare, he added.
On the positive side, hot climatic conditions in the EU had taken its toll on the European pome fruit season, and could create good demand for South African pome fruit. Pienaar said Tru-Cape was also working on growing its market share in the Far and Middle East, as well as into the rest of Africa.
