A tough 2026 doesn’t change the SA citrus industry’s sound trajectory

The Citrus Growers’ Association has again lowered its export estimate for the 2026 citrus season. The original estimate of 209.4 million 15kg cartons in April has now been reduced to 197.9 million cartons. This estimate is below the final 2025 export figure of 204 million cartons. Growers and rural communities will feel the economic impact of these decreases directly. It needs to be stressed that the citrus industry has shown remarkable resilience, and regardless of the specific nature of a given season, this resilience will continue to stand the industry in good stead.

It is important to understand the current challenging trading environment. In a typical year, we normally have to contend with one or two risk factors. This year, nearly every element of the risk framework materialised at once: a war in the Middle East that closed off routes to markets that usually absorb about 20% of our crop, severe rainfall in Limpopo and Mpumalanga early in the season, and flooding in the Western and Eastern Cape so severe that some orchards were destroyed outright. Add to that logistical bottlenecks at the ports, steep increases in shipping and input costs, and a global decrease in buying power in key markets.

Furthermore, the European orange market window was somewhat narrowed for us, with a large Egyptian crop in the beginning of the season, and now, because of unusual weather, an early local European crop on the continent.

Notwithstanding a uniquely challenging season, the industry realises that with growth comes the burden of being even more vigilant about risks that it may face in any single season. But the industry’s future trajectory, potential and plans remain fundamentally sound.

The 2026 season, as challenging as it has become, does not change where our industry is headed. Our growers have weathered remarkable challenges before, and the fundamentals that have carried us through them are unchanged: our fruit reaches northern hemisphere consumers in their summer, we are a counter-seasonal partner that keeps consumers in the citrus category year-round, and continued growth in exports still means more jobs and more rural economic upliftment in the citrus towns across our country – from Letsitele to Patensie, from Citrusdal to Marble Hall.

What the 2026 season should do is sharpen our focus on the two things within our and the government’s control that would secure a more profitable, sustainable and future-focused industry. Two main enablers stand out.

The first is market access. Opening a new market, or improving the terms in an existing one, requires years of technical work, government-to-government processes, and the concluding of a detailed agreement on the treatment and standards each destination demands. This season has shown exactly why that work cannot wait for the next crisis. When one region becomes problematic, as the Middle East did this year, growers need genuine alternatives already in place, not options still years from being finalised.

The government and industry need to treat the further diversification of export markets as urgent work. Our citrus can be made much more competitive by establishing sound, science-based protocols or better tariff regimes. One or both of these trade interventions can markedly improve access to the EU, the US, China, India, Japan and many other markets.

The second is logistics. Congestion at our ports and our severely underused rail network is compounding every other pressure growers face. Private sector participation (PSP) offers an opportunity for reform of our entire logistics system. This, too, is not an immediate answer, as some delays at the new PSP at the Port of Durban have shown. But moving through a necessary period of adjustment as part of a broader effort to secure world-class efficiency is part of the needed change. Our export economy must be set up for sustainable success, from its foundations upward. Greater private-sector participation at ports and in the rail system is essential.

The year 2026 will be remembered as the year almost every risk our industry plans for arrived at once. But it should also be remembered as the year that sharpened our resolve. Real progress on market access and on port and rail logistics would do more to secure this industry’s next decade than any single season, good or bad, ever could. That is where our energy now belongs. South African growers have turned hard seasons into stronger foundations before, and with the right work done on these two fronts, there is no reason 2026 should be any different. DM