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Chile ends 2007/2008 fruit season with a frown
Chile
Sunday 06 July 2008
“It’s been the worst season for Chile’s growers since the ‘poisoned grape’ scare at the end of the 1980s,” Rodrigo Echeverría, president of the FEDEFRUTA growers' association, told The Santiago Times. “Table grape exports will have dropped some eight percent this season to 776,000 tons, deepening the problems seen in the previous 2006/2007 season, when table grape exports fell by six percent.”Table grapes are Chile’s most important fresh fruit export, followed by apples (774,000 tons in 2007/2008), and avocados (146,000 tons).
Echeverría blamed a host of coincidental events for this season’s unhappy results – bad weather, the low-valued dollar, rising production, labor and transport costs, increased prices for competing grain crops – but also cautioned that the problems facing the industry could be much deeper. “It wasn’t that bad a season for cherries, apples and pears, but many growers will have to carefully study their current production methods, their market destinations and their crop selection in order to restore profits to their businesses,” said Echeverría. “Some plantations will just have to be switched over entirely, as is already happening in growing areas in the Metropolitan Region and in Region VI. There are lots of table grapes being pulled up, perhaps as much as five percent of all our table grape plantations. Still, it is the poorly producing hectares that are being taken out, and new plantations – planted several years ago – will be coming into production next season. So there may not be a net overall drop next season in table grape production and exports. Slowing down the table grape deal will take a long time. Thompson and Flame production will be the most at risk, because labor and production costs are so great. But Red Globe production will continue as it has.”
Echeverría also noted that even though Chilean exports of cherries and blueberries continue to grow at a healthy rate, prices this past season were down for the first time – “a very disconcerting development.” The FEDEFRUTA leader also observed that many fruit growers are tempted to convert to grain production, where investment per hectare is about US$2,500 and profits are reaped at the end of the season. Most fruit crops require an investment of US$15,000 per hectare and begin making profits only three years after planting.
Echeverría blamed a host of coincidental events for this season’s unhappy results – bad weather, the low-valued dollar, rising production, labor and transport costs, increased prices for competing grain crops – but also cautioned that the problems facing the industry could be much deeper. “It wasn’t that bad a season for cherries, apples and pears, but many growers will have to carefully study their current production methods, their market destinations and their crop selection in order to restore profits to their businesses,” said Echeverría. “Some plantations will just have to be switched over entirely, as is already happening in growing areas in the Metropolitan Region and in Region VI. There are lots of table grapes being pulled up, perhaps as much as five percent of all our table grape plantations. Still, it is the poorly producing hectares that are being taken out, and new plantations – planted several years ago – will be coming into production next season. So there may not be a net overall drop next season in table grape production and exports. Slowing down the table grape deal will take a long time. Thompson and Flame production will be the most at risk, because labor and production costs are so great. But Red Globe production will continue as it has.”
Echeverría also noted that even though Chilean exports of cherries and blueberries continue to grow at a healthy rate, prices this past season were down for the first time – “a very disconcerting development.” The FEDEFRUTA leader also observed that many fruit growers are tempted to convert to grain production, where investment per hectare is about US$2,500 and profits are reaped at the end of the season. Most fruit crops require an investment of US$15,000 per hectare and begin making profits only three years after planting.
