Citrus

Citrus is the second largest agricultural industry. Cultivation is concentrated in the Southern districts of Stann Creek and Toledo. However, expansion in cultivation has been recorded in the Western district of Cayo. The total area under cultivation is approximately 27,977 hectares. Members of the Belize Citrus Growers Association provide Citrus Products of Belize Ltd., the main processor, with citrus fruits, mainly oranges, and grapefruits.

Production

The crop year for citrus production started in October 2008 and ended in June 2009. Orange deliveries for the 2008/09 crop were 5.51mn boxes, slightly less than the 2007/08 crop amounting to over 5.6mn boxes. Orange crop had been forecasted to contract by 19.7%, but this was sidetracked by a sizeable first crop in 2008/09 of 2.4 million boxes.⁸ Grapefruit output increased for the 2008/09 crop by 226,662 boxes.

A higher juice outturn per box countered the volume contraction in citrus output. Citrus Products of Belize Limited produced over 40mn pounds solid (ps) (10,000ps more) despite lower deliveries of oranges in the 2008/09 crop. A decline was evident in the 2008/09 for grapefruit concentrate with 4.6mn ps as opposed to 5.6 mn ps in 2007/08 crop year.

Not from concentrate production increased significantly in 2008/09 for oranges with 331,000mn ps. Not from Concentrate grapefruit production expanded slightly as well by 6000 ps.

Pulp output also increased for both orange by 20% to 2.4 mn pounds and grapefruit by 100% to 607,000. Oil production rose considerably by 44% to 3.3mn pounds. Note production figures in Table 1.

Prices

During the first quarter of the year, orange juice export prices weakened due to high juice stocks in the US and declining per capita orange juice consumption by US consumers.⁹ In addition, a good orange harvest in Florida further lessened the demand for Belize’s orange juice exports. Notwithstanding that, the final estimated prices paid to local farmers for oranges was $0.94 per pounds solid, compared to $1.41 in the previous year. Grapefruit price was slightly favorable for the 2008/09 crop due to an increased demand for US consumption--$0.96 per pound solid compared to $0.89 in the previous crop.

Exports

Belize exports most of its citrus products to the US under the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Other export markets are Japan, Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union. Table 2 provides a synopsis of the revenue contribution to GDP by export market for the 2007/08 and 2008/09 crop years.