With lower-than-average temperatures registered in Argentina during the past weeks, the country’s citrus hub is looking at mild frost damage to some Navel orange crops, Argentine Citrus Federation (Federcitrus) President José Carbonell told FreshFruitPortal.com.

Carbonell said that this year’s winter is the coldest in 25 years and that the sector is on alert to prevent further damage.

He indicated that frost damage to fruit “is not measurable” and “does not appear to be serious, except in a specific area of the province of Buenos Aires.” Regarding the latter, he explained that this area mainly produces Navel oranges, which are exported and consumed at a high price in the domestic market.

Despite being a relevant crop in the local market, Carbonell explained that currently the main business of oranges in Argentina is industrialized processes, particularly milling, where the Valencia variety is the “star”.

“Frost damage is limited to the north of the province of Buenos Aires and non-industrialized varieties,” Carbonell added.

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However, growers in the affected area saw “great damage” to roughly 30% of the harvest, which was at 70%.

Despite this, the executive emphasized that “it is not something that has an impact on Argentine citrus numbers, I do not think it is significant considering that today most of the orange volume goes to milling”.

He explained that the affected area consists of around 2,500 to 2,800 hectares of Navel orange groves. 

“There’s more than 50,000 hectares of oranges in Argentina. So it is a small volume, not significant,” he stressed.

He concluded by saying that “this year the sweet derivatives of citrus fruits have very good prices, so all this is being taken advantage of, in the case of oranges, clearly the profitability of industrialized fruit is higher than that of fresh fruit”.