Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Cape Town - Apples, oranges and bananas are likely to escape any dip in consumption associated with global recessionary factors, but other types of fruit could become too "exotic" for some consumers to buy, says Capespan executive director Dr Dawie Ferreira.
Speaking at the Bien Donne annual agricultural show outside Stellenbosch, Ferreira said the looming recession in Europe will undoubtedly have an impact on local citrus and deciduous fruit farmers who export to traditional markets - of which Europe is the biggest.
Exports to the US and Europe will have to shift to new markets in Eastern Europe and China.
Ferreira said in an interview with Fin24.com that the outlook for fruit exports remained positive for the next five years despite a recession expected to bite into consumers' spending power in overseas markets.
"We are looking at possible increased production in SA of citrus and deciduous fruit of 20% in the next five years. This means there is an even greater need to develop new markets if the local crop is going to be absorbed."
This year's crop of two million tonnes is expected to increase by 25% to about 2.5 million tonnes by 2012.
Ferreira said the main new markets to be developed are India and China - the world's fastest-growing economies - but expected demand shrinkage in those countries due to the global economic crisis is not expected to have any effect on oranges, bananas and apples.
"These types of fruit are like bread and milk - needed in every household."
Transport troubles
He said the main challenges that face the local market over the next few years are road transport and harbour infrastructure - particularly container loads - that will be needed to move a bigger crop to new destinations.
"Transnet has already started to invest heavily to improve infrastructure at the Cape Town harbour and plans to upgrade other harbours are in the pipeline," he said.
Over the past three years, Capespan's FPT transport division handled increased fruit volumes that rose from 100 000 pallets to 250 000 pallets in 2008.
But with the deteriorating quality of roads and escalating diesel prices, rail transportation will become increasingly attractive, he said.
Ferreira said competition with other exporting countries like New Zealand is likely to intensify as global fruit supplies increase and demand shrinks.
On the possibility of local farmers raking the dollars on the back of the lower rand, he reckoned such a scenario could be cancelled by the lower oil price as shipping costs were paid in US dollars.
- Fin24.com