Amid infrastructure woes couple times in 2023, South Africa has managed flat returns in citrus exports, 1% above 2022’s returns.

According to the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA), national citrus exports clocked 165.1 million cartons in 2023.

This was 5 million cartons shy of the over 170 million that CGA had projected for the 2023 calendar. 

The shipment quantity is still impressive, considering that South Africa has retained its position as the world’s second biggest citrus exporter. Spain, the leader, had by August 2023 shipped $4.12 billion worth of the fruit. 

South Africa also emerged as one of the two most important emerging import markets for Spain, the other being Egypt.  During the Spanish low season in 2021, Spain imported $11.5 million of citrus from South Africa. 

Transportation Throttle

Several infrastructural issues impacted on the country’s citrus sector this year. Other than load shedding, which even hampered the processing of olives , congestion in ports affected citrus exports the most.

Stoppages at the ports of Durban and Cape Town have been costing the country 98 million Rand ($5.24 million) per day.  This is per South African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAFF) on November 20, 2023.

Commenting on this drawback, CGA President Justin Chadwick cited “congestion at ports” as having “cost farmers dearly.”  This partly refers to the diminished quality of packed produce that’s been long overdue at the ports.

Meanwhile, Transet, the public rail and ports authority, has been striving to ease shipping congestion. The state-run entity operates 16 terminals and 62 berths across South African ports.

Salt to the wound, South Africa has had to battle European Union (EU) restrictions on its outbound citrus shipments concerning Citrus Black Spot (CBS). 

This only a year after the EU enforced mandatory cold treatment over False Codling Moth pest concerns. This issue saw South Africa present its first dispute  at the World Trade Centre (WTO) in 2022. For this reason, South Africa’s citrus industry has been spending ZAR 3.7 billion ($197.6 million) per year for phytosanitary storage. 

In August, 2023, CGA had also persuaded the government to consider lodging another complaint at WTO concerning CBS restrictions.

The EU market is South Africa’s citrus’ best destination, accounting for 33% of all exports in 2022. Only the Middle East came close at 19% of exports in the same year. 

Oranges, one of the fruits at the heart of  False Codling Moth problem, are the country’s key citrus export.  In 2022, orange shipments reached  1.35 million metric tonnes. Again, this was a slight improvement of 4% from the 2021 figures.