-March 10.2022-
King of juice oranges, the Valencia crop is ripening on Valley trees this spring – but the 2022 crop looks to be down from recent years.
USDA says the March 2021-22 Valencia orange forecast is 17.2 million cartons .The season had experienced scattered precipitation in some areas but mainly warm and dry conditions in January and February.
Survey data indicated an average fruit set per tree of 541, a 0.7% decrease from the previous year and slightly above the five-year average. The average March 1 diameter was 2.459 inches, down 3.6% from the previous year and slightly below the five-year average of 2.539.
A look at the ten year history shows a decade ago there were 41,000 bearing acres of Valencia oranges in California. Today it’s down to 26,000 acres. This year the forecasted crop at 17.2 mili is down from 29 million cartons in 2011 and lower than last year when we produced 19 million cartons.
CALIFORNIA EXPORTS EFFECTIVELY SLIPPED IN LATEST NUMBERS
Inflation reversed what appeared to be a modest January increase in California’s merchandise export trade, according to Beacon Economics’ analysis of U.S. trade statistics released this morning by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Foreign shipments by California businesses totaled $13.707 billion for the month, a nominal 4.5% increase over the $13.115 billion recorded in January 2021. The state’s exports of manufactured goods in the year’s first month rose 2.1% to $8.650 billion from $8.468 billion one year earlier. Exports of non-manufactured goods (chiefly agricultural products and raw materials) jumped by 17.2% to $1.691 billion from $1.443 billion. Re-exports, meanwhile, were up by 5.1% to $3.367 billion from $3.203 billion.
Overall, California accounted for 9.3% of the nation’s merchandise export trade in January.
“Unfortunately, these ‘gains’ are an illusion,” said Jock O’Connell, Beacon Economics’ International Trade Advisor. “Heightened rates of inflation and shifts in commodity prices and exchange rates in recent months sharply degraded the apparent increases.” O’Connell added that, while the U.S. Census Bureau is today reporting a nominal 15.6% year-over-year bump in overall U.S. merchandise exports in January, the Bureau also calculates that the real, inflation-adjusted gain over this period was a mere 1.3%.
Those numbers are consistent with the 6.5% drop in outbound loaded containers from California’s major seaports in January as well as a meager 1.9% increase in export tonnage at Los Angeles International Airport.