Members of the Union of Citrus Growing Ejidos from the State of Yucatan expect to harvest more than 400,000 tons of different varieties of citrus fruits before the end of this year, said the association’s president, Luis Cetina Garcia.
Cetina Garcia said that most of Yucatan’s citrus producing ejidos are located in the Southern Cone and in the municipalities of the East.
“There are more than 15,000 farmers between the Southern Cone and the Eastern area that are currently dedicated to producing citrus crops and, thanks to the good rainy season we’ve had, many crops are advanced,” he explained.
“We are talking about sweet and sour oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, and lemons that will supply the local market’s demand and that could even be marketed in others states that haven’t had a good harvest,” he added.
He stressed that they usually start harvesting in October and that they sometimes had to wait until November but that, this year, producers had started the harvest in September because of the unusually favorable rainy season.
As a result, producers consider it is possible they may achieve 400,000 tons of produce, surpassing the 350,000 tons achieved in 2015, which was also a positive year for the local citrus production.
He said that the juicer from Akil, Yucatan’s main citrus processing plant, had already started to approach producers to purchase their crops, and that the initial price would be 1,300 pesos per ton, 100 pesos more than the initial offer from last year.
The product purchased by the juicer is used to produce concentrated citrus juices that are mainly sold to the German and US markets, among others, he said.
Source: freshplaza.com via Notimex