Apple becomes Brazil's number one fruit export

Apples are the fruit that generated the largest foreign trade revenues for Brazil this year. The Brazilian Fruit Institute (Ibraf) forecast is that apples are going to rise from the fourth place among the main fruit exported by Brazil to the first. The sector generated US$ 72.5 million with foreign trade up to the month of September, a figure that may cause the fruit to exceed mango, grape and melon in terms of foreign trade revenues. Last year, mangoes were the fruit most exported by the country, followed by grapes and melons. "Some of these fruit had problems with excessive rain and apples had excellent export performance," stated the Ibraf export manager, Maurício de Sá Ferraz. Mango export, for example, should only reach the same US$ 73 million of last year. Foreign trade of apples, in turn, rose 91% in terms of revenues up to September this year. In terms of volume, export has doubled and reached 152,200 tons. As harvests take place between the months of January and May, sales are normally completed up to August. The increase in foreign trade has taken place due to an expressive growth in production and also to the harvest reduction faced by Europe last year. A total of 989,900 tons of apples have been harvested by Brazilian farms this year, against 701,000 last year. Europe purchased around 90% of the apples exported by the country this year, a fact assisted by the price drop due to the good crop in the southern hemisphere. The ton was sold for an average of US$ 450, between 5% and 10% lower than the total last year. The historic average price per ton of apples is US$ 500.
According to the vice president of the Brazilian Apple Producer Association (ABPM), Laor Alves, producers from the country also invested in new technologies, cultivation practices, phytosanitary defence and fertilization so as to improve the productivity and quality of products and have access to the foreign market. Up to the month of September, apples already answered to around 30% of Brazilian revenues with fruit export, according to figures supplied by the Ibraf. The country had revenues of US$ 228.5 million with foreign trade in the first nine months of the year. Sales totalled 570,000 tons of Brazilian fruit on the foreign market up to September.