Steady shipments with neither oversupply nor undersupply define 2025’s citrus campaign in South Africa, forecasts the Citrus Growers of Southern Africa (CGA).
Growth in navel and Valencia orange volumes will buoy exports despite a 5% yearly retraction in lemons, the industry forecasts.
According to the CGA chairman Gerrit van der Merwe, the volume break even will enable the sector meet traditional global demand.
In the mixed tally, navels, some mandarins and grapefruit shipments will rally by 5-6% year-on-year and counter the lemon decline.
“The outlook suggests….no oversupply or shortage,” stated Van der Merwe, hailing the 2025 crop as mirroring recent traditional exports.
The earliest crop, lemons, currently already reaching Eurasia markets will shed export volume by 5%, to 32.9 million 15-kg cartons. Lowered production across Sundays River Valley in Eastern Cape and some Senwes group’s groves will contribute to the dip.
Valencia oranges will notably earn a comeback from successive failures by 6% export growth, to 52 million 15-kg boxes.
It is not yet clear how the upshot volumes will affect juice pricing, given this is a specialty juicing orange. In retrospect, local Valencias sold dearly in 2024 and affected rates of processed products abroad.
Navels, Mandarins & Grapefruit
Navel oranges on the other hand will counter lemon’s derail with 5% export volume growth, to 26.1 million 15-kg boxes.
This rally raises the bar over meager 2024 production in Western Cape and Limpopo from excessive rain and frost, respectively.
Additionally, the orange industry has for the first time categorized shipments into early/mid and late navels for better logistical tracking.
Also rallying is grapefruit, by 6% in shipment volume year-on-year, to 13.5 million 17-kg boxes.
At flat growth will be satsuma, which according to CGA will retain 2024 volumes at 1.8 million 15-kg consignments.
2032 Projections
After the balanced estimates above, the focus shifts to boosting the sector’s sales towards 260 million cartons by 2032.
There are also hopes that the industry will add 100,000 jobs over the current 140,000 in the next 7 years.
Before that however, citrus South Africa will have to surmount strict European Union (EU)’s regulations, particularly on citrus black spot (CBS). The fungus apparently costs the sector about 3.7 billion Rand ($202.9 million) per season. And as the statistics below show, this is no slight figure in the context of the overall export revenue by the sector.
South Africa Citrus Export Statistics
South Africa’s citrus exports rank as the world’s number 2 by trade value worth $2.43 billion, as of 2023. As the 11th biggest national export, citrus shipments are no small fete for an industrialized nation. Two key destinations, namely the Netherlands ($450 million) and the UK ($205 million), claim 1/3rd of all export revenue, as of 2023. This brings into focus the fact that the European Union is the biggest trading partner that claims 41% of all shipments (2021).
What are the pros and cons of the EU market for South Africa’s citrus?
The EU market brings in $644 million each year from oranges, lemons, mandarins and grapefruit (2023). But since 2022, this revenue has been coming at a cost due to stringent regulations on false codling moth (FCM) and citrus black spot (CBS). Beginning 2022, these regulations have been costing exporters nearly 4 billion Rand ($219.36 million) a year.
What is the portion of regulation costs versus SA’s citrus export revenue?
Direct CBS and FCM costs alone amount to roughly $219.36 a year. On top of this are unaccounted logistics that some studies put at 5.27 billion Rand ($289 million), annually. Both aggregated costs amount to approximately 1/5th of the total citrus export value of $2.89 million (2021) by South Africa worldwide.