Citrus

It will take professionals a long time to forget the 2006-2007 season. Although it was first and foremost a financial catastrophe for the producer countries with high production costs, it was also one of historically large harvests, an extremely paradoxical illustration of the success of Mediterranean citrus growing. Today, one citrus fruit in two sold on the international market is Mediterranean. However, for some seasons now the production systems in some countries seem to have been outstripping the nonetheless real growth of the international market, especially as weather conditions have often adversely affected consumption and fruit quality. It is true that retail distributors in western Europe are partly to blame this year once again. However, the upstream part of the chain should also heed the alarm bell, especially in Spain where some easy peeler growers have been particularly hard-hit. Nevertheless, Mediterranean producers possess a major advantage. Their unique varietal range of easy peelers and orange means that they can generate growth by lengthening the marketing season and by facilitating access to the numerous potential market growth areas in eastern Europe and North America today and in Asia and Latin America in the future. (Résumé d'auteur