Recently, the Secretariat of the international Citrus Association (WCO) released the first industry production forecast for the northern hemisphere citrus season in 2020-21. Preliminary forecasts are based on industry associations in Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States (California and Florida). On November 5, the first global citrus conference, jointly organized by the world citrus Organization (WCO), CIRAD and fruitnet media international, was held online. More than 1300 registrants from 60 countries participated in the online conference. Major production and trade trends of citrus were discussed.
The preliminary forecast shows that the citrus production in the northern hemisphere will reach 28737570 tons in 2020-21 production season, a slight decrease of 1% compared with that in 2019. The decline in production has been linked to climate change in some countries, with several producing regions in the northern hemisphere experiencing drought last year.
In terms of Citrus categories, the yield of most of them decreased. Orange production is expected to be reduced by 2%, lemon by 7% and grapefruit by 9%. Compared with the previous year, the only category with an increase in production was oranges, an increase of 5%. In terms of regional production, European production is expected to increase, with Italy and Spain increasing by 12% and Greece by 1%. The output of several countries located on the southern edge of the Mediterranean Sea will decline compared with that in 2019, including 8% in Egypt, 4% in Israel and 15% in Turkey. On the other hand, Morocco and Tunisia forecast that this year's citrus planting area will increase by 13% and 20% respectively compared with last year. Compared with last year's data, California in the United States cut its production forecast by 5% and Florida by 14%.