Apple and pear time, but citrus output slipping

Apples and pears get top billing in the latest ERS outlook report for fruits and tree nuts. Go here for the full report. A couple of highlights:


On apples:


ERS projects that, with the smaller fresh-market crop, domestic per capita consumption of fresh apples will decline in 2008/09 by about 3 percent from the 2007/08 estimate of 16.4 pounds per person, marking 2 years in a row of declining consumption. At the current projected production, imports would need to increase substantially (by about 44 percent) to at least match the overall fresh-market supplies last season. Since the 1980s, the most that imports have grown each season ranged from 30 to 34 percent and during 2007/08, imports even fell 13 percent despite lower domestic production.


On pears:



This year’s smaller U.S. pear crop and projections of tight fresh-market supplies of competing U.S. apples will likely boost fresh-market prices for pears in 2008/09 (July-June). Carryover stocks in cold storage from last year’s harvest, mostly of non-Bartlett pears, were 47-percent lower at the beginning of this season in July than in July 2007.


On Western navels

The smaller crop is likely to drive grower prices higher than the past few seasons. As often happens with smaller crops, fruit size has the potential to average on the bigger size this season. As of September 1, the NASS survey reported that the average navel orange was 2.276 inches in diameter, the biggest since 2004/05. It is forecasting that by March 1, the average diameter will increase to 3.054 inches, bigger than last season, but smaller than 2006/07. Major international markets have strong demand for bigger oranges and more large-sized fruit will be helpful in creating strong international demand for this season’s crop



On Florida citrus


Florida’s citrus acreage has been declining every year since 1998, but only since 2002 has orange acreage been included. Grapefruit acreage has been declining annually since peaking in 1994. In recent years the decline has been accelerated not only due to the factors already mentioned but also due to the direct hits from the hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 and to the weakening domestic demand for fresh grapefruit and grapefruit juice. Florida’s specialty citrus crop industry has been facing growing competition from imported tangerine varieties, especially the clementines, reducing growers’ incentives to replace trees of the less popular tangerine varieties.