It is not only South African fruit which has suffered at the hands of the weather this year, onion growers have also suffered losses. Rain during planting, rain during harvesting and a bit of hail thrown in for good measure has reduced volumes by around 20-25%.
John Davey from Dutoit, who grow around 14% of South Africa's onions, "There will be a shortage of onions in South Africa in June and July. The Western Cape is 40% complete, but volumes are lower that expected. Rain has also made the crop later in the Northern Province which will then clash with produce from the Northern Cape and create a bottle neck towards the end of the year."
Davey explains that they have not been able to export to Europe this year due to the quality risk caused by the wet weather, "Exports have been minimal, a lot of growers have domestic programs to fulfil and this combined with lower quality has meant there have been next to no exports."
There have however been increasing exports to African countries such as Angola, "Volumes exported there and to other African countries have increased and prices are very good. All things considered we shouldn't be too much better or worse off than last year."
