Brazil's frozen concentrated orange juice exports for 2011-12 are expected to show a  9% increase at 1.245 million MT, with production volumes increasing by 345,000 MT to 1.44 million MT, according to a U.S. government report.

Report author Sergio Barros, attributes the rise to more fruit available for processing and the need to reset orange stocks which were significantly low in the end of the previous crushing period.

Fresh orange exports for the season are expected to be similar to the previous one at 1 million boxes despite a lower crop volume forecast of 445 million boxes - a 12% year on year decrease.

The Netherlands, Spain and the U.K. are the main export destinations for Brazilian oranges.

The U.S.  Department of Agriculture (USDA) report forecasts yields per tree in Brazil will decrease by 11% to 2.01 boxes per tree, although Sao Paulo commerical groves are expected to show an increase at 2.34 boxes per tree due to larger fruit than predicted.

Brazil's orange crop remained largely unaffected by greening disease despite its presence in more than half of the sample blocks tested in a Citriculture Defense Fund survey.  Researchers found that out of the trees tested only 3.8% of trees were affected.

Photo: Actualidad.rt.com

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