January 18 2007, 09:15

The prices for fresh oranges and lemons, and also orange juice can rapidly grow

Californian producers of citrus fruits are evaluating the losses caused by frosts. According to the preliminary information, these frosts can become the most destructive in two recent decades. In any case, we can say that California will lose a significant part of the harvest of these fruits. California is the second largest citrus fruits producer in the USA after Florida. Some farmers inform about 100% harvest loss; at the same time, some other producers think it is possible that 40-50% of the harvest will survive. The specialists of "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" weekly journal have provided this information today.

The American citrus fruits are rarely supplied to the markets of the European part of Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries; despite of this fact, the problems with citrus fruits harvest in the USA always affect the prices in our region. The USA is the largest producer of oranges and lemons in the world; the country provides around 20% of the world orange production and around 13% of the world lemon production. Also, the frozen orange concentrate of the USA origin has an enormous influence on the fruit juice prices in the whole world.

To the opinion of Andriy Yarmak, the Deputy Director of the Agricultural Marketing Project, the fruit importers in Ukraine and Russia will start increasing prices for this product in the next few days. They would like to prepare the market to the supplies of more expensive oranges and lemons. Also, the expert believes that the frosts in California mean great news for Ukrainian producers of apple concentrate and apple puree. They will be able to get a higher price for their product as the prices for apple concentrate directly depend on the prices for the frozen orange concentrate. The juice producers will recognize this news as bad as the prices for fruit juices are likely to grow again after the mentioned events.

We should point out that, together with citrus fruits producers, the growers of the other produce have suffered from the frosts: they are the farmers who produce lettuces and other vegetables, avocado, strawberry and even blueberry. It is worth to mention that the USA remains the world leader of blueberry and strawberry production; however, blueberry

production is concentrated in the Northern states. Still, if the losses of strawberry harvest are considerable, the world prices for this product will be possibly higher than the preliminary expected prices this season.