Editor’s note: The following is one of the issues highlighted in The Packer’s Year in Produce 2023 review.
Rain is always welcome by farmers except when it isn’t, and there was a lot of that sentiment at times during 2023.
Hurricane Hilary dealt California grape growers a severe blow, The Packer reported in early September. The storm delivered wind and rain to many California table grape vineyards during peak harvest for most of the 90 varieties grown in the state; problems were compounded as many growing areas were hit with additional rain and humidity from the storm’s aftermath, industry leaders said.
“To say that the grower and farmworker community is in shock is an understatement,” California Table Grape Commission President Kathleen Nave said at the time.
With approximately 30% of the crop harvested when the hurricane hit, it is projected that 35% of the remaining table grape crop — 25 million boxes — had been lost, according to the commission.
“The revised estimate for the California crop is 71.9 million 19-pound boxes,” Nave said. “The last time the crop was under 75 million boxes was 1994.”
The shorter crop resulted in sharply higher prices for California grapes. The USDA reported the average annual shipping point price for California grapes in 2023 was $28.54 per carton, up 29% from $22.12 per carton in 2022 and $22.52 per carton in 2021.
Through Dec. 9, the USDA reported season-to-date shipments of central California grapes were down 14% compared with the same time a year ago.
In February, The Packer reported that downpours hit Southern California strawberry fields, with nearly 4 inches of rain falling in the Oxnard growing area in January. The California Strawberry Commission estimated at the time that farms in Ventura County experienced 300 acres of “catastrophic losses.” Statewide, the losses were 1,840 acres.
Despite the early rain, the 2023 average fob price for California strawberries in 2023 was $14.98 per carton, compared with $15.82 per carton last year. Through Dec. 9, year-to-date central California truck shipments of strawberries were at 6% below year-ago levels.
In October, The Packer reported that the Chilean Blueberry Committee of ASOEX forecast exports of 76,500 tons of fresh blueberries, down 7% compared with the first estimate in October and a decrease of 13% from 2022-23. Industry leaders said the new forecast takes into consideration the effect of the rains during the first two weeks of November, in addition to associated climatic events such as frost and hail.
In November, The Packer reported on El Niño causing havoc with some specialty fruits and vegetables out of South America.
The weather “made doing business out of Peru very tough and a lot lighter this year,” Jeff Friedman, president of CarbAmericas, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said at the time. In Ecuador, mango production was down around 60%, “and pricing is not going to be conducive to promotions,” he said at the time.
For D Produce Co., Coral Gables, Fla., the weather problems impacted and damaged mango plantations in Peru “and people couldn’t mitigate these problems,” said Diego Morales, sales manager. Prices will be extremely high because of that, he said.
