Fiji's king pawpaw supplier in region

June 30, 2009 - The Fiji Times

Fiji represents 90 per cent of the Pacific share of the New Zealand import fruits and vegetables market, says Forum Secretariat's Pacific Island Trade Commissioner to New Zealand Chris Cocker. He said it was a positive to see Fiji retain its market share in New Zealand over the years despite ... reade more...

Malaysia: Papaya prices going up in Penang

June 27, 2009 - The Star Online

A SHORTAGE of papayas in Penang has led to higher prices with a fruit seller saying he is selling them at 80 sen per slice instead of the usual 50 sen. Street vendor S. Ravi, 47, told Malaysia Nanban that he had not opened his stall for the past week due to the shortage.Ravi, who operates in Market Street (Little India area), said most fruit vendors were now focusing on durians which were in season.Many of his customers, he said, seemed to ... read more...

Recession hits UK exotics consumption

note from David: well it's kind of official, look at my earlier posts on the dramatic papaya data for the first three months of 2009.

June 22, 2009 - Reefer Trend
The sales value of tropical fruits such as pineapples, mangoes and melons has dropped by 5.5% with volumes falling even more steeply

A tough start for papaya imports in 2009 (correction)

by David Ivanovic – June 18, 2009

There was a slight mistake in my table (the years were wrong!) Here’s the good one.

EU15 Papaya Imports in 2008

by David Ivanovic

Imports of fresh papayas by the EU15 totalled 37,293 tons in 2008, up by 2.5% from levels recorded in 2007, despite important drops from Brazilian (-6%) and Ecuadorian suppliers (-23%).

Papayas from Cote d’Ivoire increased by nearly 100% between the two years, securing 10% of the market share in Europe.

Seasonality of US Imports in 2008

by David Ivanovic

2008 was a year to forget for the papaya industry in the United States. Imports have fallen by 10% compared to volumes in 2007, from 138,000 to 124,000 mt (excluding shipments from Hawaii).

In 2008, monthly shipments averaged 10,000 mt, with a typical peak between April and May. Mexico and Belize occupy together 90% of the imported papaya market.

‘Perfect’ papaya now being exported to Canada

The variety of papaya known as “Perfect” or “World’s Best” — the Costa Rican hybrid Pococi — is now being enjoyed by Canadians, and national agricultural officials and agribusinesses hope it will soon find its way to Europe, where samples have been positively received.

In order to make the flavor of these unique Costa Rican papayas known, a group of local agribusinesses took part in a week-long exporters’ mission during the month of May in Toronto, Canada. The mission was supported by the Trade Promotion Office of the Costa Rican Foreign Corporation (Procomer). The activity yielded some 99 business meetings with well-known supermarket chains such as Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro.

The Ministry of Agriculture (MAG) is promoting the cultivation of papayas using good management practices, rational utilization of inputs and good harvesting practices that would guarantee the shelf life of the fruits up to the moment they are sold in their final market destinations.

According to MAG’s non-traditional fruits manager, Alberto Montero Gonzalez, Costa Rica has the ideal conditions to grow the “perfect” papayas, which were developed by ministry experts and are mainly grown in the Caribbean region (Guacimo and Pococi), the Northern Zone (La Fortuna), and the Central Pacific (Orotina and Parrita).

“Costa Rica has some 1,000 hectares of papayas planted, of which 400 correspond to the Pococi hybrid, while the rest has the local variety known as ‘lucia’, among others,” Montero Gonzalez said.

The Pococi hybrid boasts excellent flavor, sweetness, compact pulp, deep orange color, and high productivity — up to 80 tons per hectare per year, with each fruit reaching an average weight of 1 to 1.5 kilograms.

Montero Gonzalez added that Costa Rica is in a great position to increase production and commercialization of the Pococi hybrid, as the country has enough seed at the Los Diamantes Experiment Station in Guapiles (INTA-MAG) and the Fabio Baudrit Experiment Station (UCR-MAG).

The cost of seed per hectare of the Pococi hybrid is about 40,000 colones ($70), with expenses for establishing the crop and production costs totaling some 6 million colones ($10,500) per hectare for an 18-24 production period.

MAG and the National Agricultural Research and Technology Transfer Institute INTA) offers growers field days, technical assistance and technology transfer so that they can be successful in the papaya-growing operations.

A recent outreach event took place last April 28 at the Guacimo Cantonal Agricultural Center in the province of Limon.


Source: insidecostarica.com

Publication date: 5/27/2009