Egypt recently announced its status as the world’s largest orange exporter, after citrus farms have been prospering in the North African country over the past few years.

“Egyptian oranges have reached most of the world’s markets as Egypt now ranks first worldwide in exporting oranges, surpassing Spain that has been in the lead over the past few years,” said Ahmed al-Attar, head of the Central Administration of Plant Quarantine (CAPQ) which belongs to the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture.

Since the beginning of 2020, Egypt has exported 1.3 million tonnes of oranges amid a growing demand for Egyptian agricultural products, the exports of which have reached 2.2 million tonnes since January despite the global outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent statement by CAPQ.

At one of the farms of Maghrabi Agriculture (MAFA), the largest orchard in Egypt and probably in the world, Samy al-Sayyid, manager of CAPQ exporters service department, was supervising the stages of citrus processing from harvesting until packing and loading for exportation.

“CAPQ inspectors are present all day at citrus farms for supervision. They are also present at sea, air or land ports to complete exportation procedures without any delay,” the CAPQ official told Xinhua at MAFA’s packhouse.

Sayyid pointed out that nearly 100,000 tonnes of oranges have been exported to China this year. xinhuanet.com

The chief executives of three large US citrus grower associations estimate ‘the immediate COVID-19 impact to certain varieties of citrus will be over USD200 million.’

Casey Creamer of California Citrus Mutual, Dale Murden of Texas Citrus Mutual and Mike Sparks of Florida Citrus Mutual offered that economic damage assessment in an April 9 letter to US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. The letter was intended to help the USDA put together effective programs funded by the USD2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

“The citrus industry impacts have varied greatly by region and variety,” the executives wrote. “To date, the biggest challenges we are seeing across the industry are due (to) the shutdown of schools and restaurants. Additional movement in the retail sector (has) not compensated for losses in food service for lemons, grapefruit juice, and most specialty varieties, and it is too early to tell what the net impact will be for orange juice. California provides the nation’s supply of fresh lemons with over half of the production traditionally going to food service. Total weekly movement of lemons has decreased by 30% in volume” since shelter-in-place requirements took effect across the country.

“Grapefruit and grapefruit juice movement and sales have also come to a dramatic halt since mid-March as schools, restaurants and retail outlets have either closed or severely limited entrance to stores, and buyers are now cancelling orders,” the letter added.

“While we are projecting significant losses in the USD200 million dollar-range by the end of the season, it is too early for us to fully quantify those losses to USDA,” the executives stated. “It will be important that the program USDA implements allows for growers to access relief when demonstrating economic harm. CitrusIndustry.

The organisation representing Australia’s citrus fruit growers has commissioned a pilot study to improve traceability using unique digital identifiers on a blockchain.

The pilot will be run with the help of digital ID label start-up Laava and real-time blockchain company Trust Provenance, backed with AUD200,000 (AUD120,000) in funding from Agriculture Victoria, Australia’s largest agriculture producer spanning more than 29,000 businesses.

It aims to provide a simple way to tell the origin of citrus fruit grown in Victoria, protect against counterfeiting, and improve control of the supply chain from ‘tree to table’, for example allowing rapid recalls of fruit if needed.

Australia’s citrus sector exported AUD540m-worth of fruit last year, with AUD162m of that total coming from Victoria.

Minister for Agriculture Jaclyn Symes said the programme was scheduled to take place over seven months during the 2020 citrus harvest period from early May to the end of July, although it may be delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The results will be used to show other horticultural industries the benefits of traceability.

Trust Provenance and Laava are already testing a traceability system for mango producer Manbulloo in Northern Australia. Securingindustry.com

Consumers fearful of contracting the coronavirus have been seeking to boost their immune systems the old-fashioned way: by loading up on orange juice.

Frozen concentrated orange juice, traded in New York, is the best performing of all commodities this year, according to Bloomberg data, rising 25% to USD1.214 a pound since the start of January. US shoppers have rushed to stock up on the shelf staple, analysts say, while fears over labour shortages in factories and transportation have also given prices a lift.

“The Covid 19 outbreaks are hitting both the supply and demand for orange juice. The immune-boosting properties are the demand side attraction while there are simply not enough tanker spaces with airlines not flying to bring the product to markets,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at broker AxiCorp.
On the supply side, there are also issues with not having enough workers as plantations introduce restrictions such as social distancing. “Traders are wondering if workers are around to man the plants here in Florida and in Brazil,” said Jack Scoville at trading firm Price Futures Group in the US.
Orange juice futures have seen their biggest monthly gain since October 2015, at a time when global stock markets are being battered. In London, the FTSE 100 index is down more than 13% in the last month, while on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen more than 16%.

Talking about whether the spike in orange juice futures prices will mean higher prices for orange juice in shop, Mr Innes added: “The pass-on effect will be quick as orange juice producers pass the price rises onto to supermarkets and other buyers”.
Most commodities have a ‘future’ price, which can be traded on an exchange, such as the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Futures contracts help companies lock into a fixed price in the future to protect them from potential spikes in prices.
Futures contracts are common for soft commodities like oranges and wheat which is vulnerable to sudden price rises due to bad harvests and natural disasters.”BBC