News (Page 192)

by Maura Maxwell, Fruitnet   Colombia’s banana production increased by 13.2 per cent in both volume and value in 2015 according to figures released by the country’s producer association Augura.   The association’s president Juan Camilo Restrepo Gómez said 94m boxes of the fruit were shipped last year compared with 83mContinue Reading

by Yzza Ibrahim, Fresh Plaza   The Kenyan avocado season, which lasts from March to July, kicked off recently and, according to David Mulwa of Kandia Fresh Produce Suppliers, while there have been some issues due to the excessive rains, the production is fairly good, and over the last few weeks,Continue Reading

  As a result of the ban on Mexican Hass avocados, avocado prices in Costa Rica are 90% more expensive than in 2015 and there has been an increase in the smuggling of this fruit from Panama.   According to data from the Comprehensive Agricultural Marketing Program (PIMA) of theContinue Reading

by Hakim Hassan, The Malay Mail Online   Durian exporters are feeling the heat brought by El Nino phenomenon as some businesses are bracing for a slowdown in exports.   Agnessia Best Fruits Trading (Malaysia) director Albert Tan expects the company’s durian exports to decrease as he said the extreme weather had stuntedContinue Reading

by Carl Collen, Fruitnet   This season’s Florida orange crop increased by 5m boxes in the latest estimate released Tuesday by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).   The orange crop is projected to hit 76m boxes this season, up 7 per cent on theContinue Reading

by Martyn Fisher, Fruitnet   Asda’s fresh produce supply arm International Procurement and Logistics (IPL) is helping the retailer shift from a model where pineapples are supplied to Asda through third party vendors, to one where 30 per cent of pineapples going to Asda stores comes via IPL.   The firstContinue Reading

by John Groh, The Produce News   Hapco Farms is looking forward to the start of its domestic watermelon deal, with product from south Florida expected to begin shipping in late April.   Raquel Mello, who is in watermelon sales for the Riverhead, NY-based company, said that Florida melons have gottenContinue Reading

  Cooking banana is the main staple crop in Uganda produced mostly by smallholders for food and income. However, the cooking banana value chain players face risks of high postharvest losses due to the short green life of bananas and damage arising from poor handling of the produce after itContinue Reading

  Imported citrus rootstock could open up new growing areas and higher volumes for growers based on research happening in New South Wales.   Rootstock can have a large effect on many aspects of production including yield, fruit quality, tree size, disease tolerance and scion compatibility.   All commercial citrusContinue Reading

  Scientists at the Universitat Politècnica de València have combined images provided by European and American remote sensing satellites to diagnose the irrigation status of citrus fields, as well as other crop characteristics such as vegetation cover or plant vigour.   The project is the result of an experiment carriedContinue Reading

  According to Julio Reyes Vazquez, the president of the municipal committee of the National Peasant Confederation (CNC), more than 1,200 hectares of citrus are at the mercy of pests, such as the fruit fly, that would affect 2,000 producers in Tuxpan alone, because of the lack of government supportContinue Reading