The 2023-2024 table grape campaign has been a challenging one, Alejandro Cabrera, the general manager of the Peruvian Table Grape Producers Association (Provid), told Agraria.
“We have had the impact of adverse weather conditions, which have been going on for even a year, because the situations that occurred in March and April 2023, which was Cyclone Yaku, with heavy rains and strong consecutive winds for up to 40 days in the northern area of Peru, had a direct impact on the grape productivity of this campaign,” he said.
In addition, he said the table grape industry faced the climatological phenomenon called coastal El Niño, “which is higher temperatures, which is why we had a very warm winter or rather, we did not have a winter in Peru.”
The two climatic events generated a direct impact on the productivity of the fields, on the yields per hectare of the crops, which were expressed mainly in smaller fences and finally lower yields, which led to a drop in the 2023-2024 campaign in Peru.
The drop in shipments in calendar week 12 had a 12 percent drop in exports. Last season in this same week, 71.1 million boxes of 8.2-kilos were exported, and this season in week 12 there were 62.4 million.
In regard to destination, Cabrera specified that the first place is still occupied by the U.S., with 46 percent of shipments, the Netherlands is second with 12 percent and Mexico in third place this season with 8.5 percent, surpassing China which was left with 7.7 percent. The UK is in fifth place with 3.8 percent of shipments.
He added that all destinations decreased fruit imports from Peru due to lower supply. The U.S. fell by 12 percent, the Netherlands fell by 19 percent, and China fell by 18 percent. But Mexico remains practically at the same shipping level as last season.
