Though rain across parts of the Eastern Cape’s citrus production area has caused slight delays in picking and shipping, early market indicators show positive trends for citrus exports to international trade destinations.
Exports to the US, China and Russia have recorded encouraging increases, with the Eastern Cape’s 2023 harvest contributing 2.3-million more cartons of citrus up to May than in previous years.
Adding to the good news is that rain across the Langkloof and the surrounding catchments area has lifted the Kouga Dam’s levels to about 23%.
Looking at citrus export markets over the past five years, Citrus Growers Association chief executive Justin Chadwick said exports to the US had almost doubled since 2018, while the Chinese and Russian markets had grown by about 20%.
Chadwick said regions such as the Sundays River Valley and Gamtoos River Valley — the province’s citrus production hubs — had played a significant role in contributing to the positive figures.
“Production of citrus from the Eastern Cape regions has commenced on a solid note with production volume up by 2.3-million cartons to week 20 compared to previous years,” Chadwick said.
“From the varieties produced to this point, lemons are up by 1.4-million cartons, early Mandarin varieties are up by 700,000 cartons, and navels are up by 200,000 cartons.”
More citrus would also be shipped from Eastern Cape ports, instead of being trucked to the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal for export.
“Transnet Port Terminals assured us that they will negotiate with shipping lines to support the Eastern Cape ports of Coega and Port Elizabeth in 2023.
“During the last two citrus seasons, fruit had to be trucked to either Durban or Cape Town to be shipped as some lines withdrew services to the region’s ports.
“However, we are seeing direct weekly services from Coega and Port of Port Elizabeth to the Far East, Middle East, Asia, Europe and UK.”
Chadwick said early estimates suggested that about 26,500 refrigerated containers could be shipped from the region’s ports — about 4,500 more than last year.
He said recent heavy rains could lead to a temporary drop in production, but this would allow the logistics chain to catch up.
Gamtoos Irrigation Board chief executive Rienette Colesky said the Kouga Dam should measure about 23% capacity by the end of Thursday as the run-off from the surrounding region continued to flow in.
“Obviously we are very grateful for the considerable increase we have seen in recent weeks, and compared to last year this time the picture does seem much less bleak.
“But we are still very far from being out of the woods.”
The Kouga Dam level was at a dismal 14% in May 2022.
Colesky said other dams in the Algoa Water Supply System, such as the Churchill and Impofu dams, had recorded little to no improvement despite the recent rainfall.
Fortunately, smaller farm dams and groundwater sources in the region below the Kouga dam should have been replenished.
“We will have meetings on Thursday where the reservoir levels across the Algoa system will come under discussion.
“In the weeks following those meetings our technical teams will be running several models in terms of varied water usage.
“Depending on the outcomes of these models, we could see changes in water restrictions for those extracting water from the Algoa system,” Colesky said.
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