Similar export volumes to last season
"The season has been similar in terms of total volumes exported compared to last season. However, th…"The season has been similar in terms of total volumes exported compared to last season. However, the weather has made the season quite unsure. We experienced a warm fall, followed by lots of rain and then even light frost in our areas. It didn´t damage the production itself, however it, caused some delays and difficulties to get the lemons from the field for example”, states Martijn Hazeu from Citrusvil, Argentina, in this reflection on the season that finished at the beginning of September.
He explains that there were some concerns about phytosanitary issues, that made the export flows change a little. “As a precaution, to prevent any problems with important markets like the EU, we sent more volumes to non-European countries for this season, with Russia being the main receiver. The Russian market being receptive and our product being of good quality, which was well appreciated by them.”
Export campaign remained positive
The moment Argentina starts supplying the European market, is when the season in Spain is finalizing. “When Argentina lemons enter the market they take over the place of the European suppliers. Now at the end of our season, prices were still attractive in August. I have been working in the lemon business for 13 years now, and I can say every export season is completely different.”
South Africa is upcoming competition
Martijn is of the opinion that it’s noticeable in the market that South Africa has become a real competition. “It is very important to look and try to work on protocols to open alternative markets such as India and China. These are markets that can take big volumes as well.”
Having the United States open for Argentina's lemons is very positive according Martijn. “The market won´t be importing big volumes for now, but it will help spreading the volumes. We make sure that we are no competition for the US lemons. This first season went well, because we exported good quality and did not overflow the market. We have been working really hard to re-open this market, so we have to keep it open this time.”
Citrusvil
The company is one of the biggest lemons producers from Argentina with 7000 hectares of production. “Something we can be very proud of, is that the company is environmentally friendly. We, speaking for the Fresh Fruit Department, use the lemons for export. The lemons not fit for this purpose go to our industrial processing plants. There they are used to obtain essence oil, concentrated juice and dehydrated peel. Besides, there are other byproducts recovered at the production lines, such as pulp cells, distilled oil, watery and oily phases.”
In addition to this, Citrusvil uses the residual material as well. Citrusvil has the first Lemon Effluent Treatment Plant in the world and is certified under the Environmental Management System ISO 14001. This allows Citrusvil to recover biogas, and to eliminate gas emissions, resulting from effluent treatment, into the atmosphere. 100% of the liquid effluent is treated to make it suitable for the fertilization and irrigation of our crop fields. Finally, also the solid organic waste is processed to generate compost used in the nursery and the fields”, concludes Martijn.