Dear Readers,
Like every year, we have recently been visiting the raisin area in South Africa and we get the impression that the upcoming crop is, quality- and quantity-wise looking good this year. Having said that only yesterday the center of the town of Upington got flooded due to 80 mm rainfall in 20 min. We are still awaiting reports of damage that might have occurred in the vines around this area.
Of course the bunches still need to be on the “stokkies” for a month or two but the whole looks promising
Talking to various farmers, all of them are convinced that, if nothing serious is happening in the weather pattern, a crop of 80.000 mtons is achievable and with the increase of acres with new vine-yards, a total of 100.000 mtons in the years to come is possible.
This, of course, is a good prospective, especially seen in the light of California’s serious intention to diminish finally their raisin-acreage back to a total of 200.000 tons of which 175.000 tons is meant for home-consumption leaving only about 25.000 tons for export. The acreages falling free will be re-planted with almonds and other better yielding produce,.
The background of such decision simply lays in the figure of demand and supply worldwide.
In order to understand such serious decision better, one should realize that China is growing rapidly, which means importing less and India and Iran are making good progress, quality- and quantity-wise. Then, of course there are other countries, of whom the biggest of all Turkey with an exportable quantity of over 300.000 tons of which roughly 20.000 tons is home-consumtion,.
Summarizing, the above means that, South Africa, which is well-known for its top-quality sofar, shall do everything possible to remain on the top, which is valid for most of its types..