Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook - USDA

The latest USDA ERS Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook has been released and can be found here. From the report, notes about oranges and grapefruit:


The smaller crop of fresh oranges out of California this season boosted the average price growers received November 2008 through February 2009 over the same time last season. Weak demand for oranges for processing has driven down Florida’s processing-orange grower prices this season. U.S grapefruit production is forecast at 1.4 million tons this season, 13 percent below last season and 16 percent below 2006/07. Despite the smaller crop this season, grower prices for fresh grapefruit have been running behind the past several seasons.


On mandarins and clementines....


The 2008 California Citrus Acreage Report shows the State’s bearing acreage for tangerines more than doubled between 2005 and 2008. The number of nonbearing acres planted to tangerines is second only to navel oranges among the State’s citrus acreage. About a third of the acreage is in Kern County, followed by Tulare County. The W. Murcott mandarin variety still has the most acreage of all the tangerine varieties. It appears to remain a very popular variety because it also has the biggest number of nonbearing acres. Various clementine varieties account for the second biggest number of acres, followed by the Minneola, which is a tangelo.



On strawberries...


Forecast bigger acreage in major strawberry-producing States will help boost domestic production, likely surpassing the record-large crop of 2.5 billion pounds produced last year. In January, NASS had forecast 2009 combined strawberry planted acreage in California, Florida, and Oregon to increase by 2,800 acres from a year ago, totaling 48,500 acres. Acreage increased for all three States, with California having the largest additional production area, increasing by 2,300 acres. The forecasts also show Florida with 400 more acres inproduction and Oregon having an additional 100 acres.


On avocados.....


U.S. fresh avocado imports have been increasing consecutively over the last seven years, reaching a record 694.0 million pounds in 2007/08. In 2006/07 and 2007/08, imports made up 65 to 75 percent of all the avocados for domestic fresh-market consumption. As in the two previous marketing seasons, imports will again play a dominant role in meeting avocado demand in the United States in 2008/09. With yet another large crop expected for this year, Mexico will likely fill in for most of the slack in U.S. supplies. Imports from Chile have increasingly faced competition with Mexico in the U.S. market over the last few years, with its share of U.S. import volume declining from over 60 percent during the early 2000s to 21 percent in 2007/08. According to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, Mexican Hass avocado production is forecast to increase to a record 1.15 million metric tons, up 13 percent
from 2007/08. With this level of production, Mexico is forecast to increase avocado exports 6 percent, to a record 320 million metric tons. Most of these exports will be bound for the U.S. market.


On bananas and other imports.....


As the No. 1 fresh fruit import, banana shipments dominate overall U.S. fresh fruit imports. Due to adverse weather in Costa Rica and Panama, two of the major sources of bananas for the U.S. market, shipments this January were down 8 percent from last January (table 15). Heavy flooding in November damaged plantations in both countries, reducing supplies. Costa Rica also experienced an earthquake in January, bringing more damage to its banana industry. Banana supplies were tight throughout much of 2008, and are likely to remain so through at least early 2009. As a result, American consumers can expect to continue to pay higher than average prices over the next few months. Shipments of Spanish clementines and Chilean grapes were up this season due to good crops in the respective countries. During the winter months, all the grapes in the U.S. grocery stores are from the Southern Hemisphere, mostly from Chile. As a result of the increased quantity of grapes imported into the United States from November through March, consumers paid less at retail throughout much of the import season. Spanish clementines compete in the U.S. markets with fresh navel oranges, and tangerines and mandarins—including California clementines. California’s clementine production has grown in recent years, increasing market availability of the fruit. Retail prices for clementines were lower this January and February than last year, according to AMS retail price data, largely due to the increase in the quantity of Spanish and California clementines in U.S. markets.