ACTIVE RIVAL

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 144, 21 June 1930, Page 7

ACTIVE RIVAL

WORLD'S FRUIT TRADE

SOUTH AFBICA'S STRENGTH

South Africa will tend more and more to dominate the fruit trade to Europe, says the Melbourne "Leader."

While many competent experts and fruit growers maintain that the future of the fruit industry is each year becoming more and more dependent upon the successful exploitations of overseas markets, it must not bo forgotten that other fruit-growing countries have similar aspirations, states the "Loader." Although the fruit growers and exporters of the Commonwealth are using every endeavour to place well-graded, well-packed quality products on the overseas markets they are faced with several factors that operate adversely to tho successful establishment of a stable export trade. They are farther from their markets than any other fruit-producing country; they are handicapped by high costs of production, excessive freights, and inadequate refrigerated space in transport. That South Africa will steadily assume- a stronger position in the fruit trade of the world has frequently been stated by Australian business men returning from a visit to that country, and that • she will eventually become Australia's greatest competitor on the overseas markets is more than mere assumption. Mr. L. Perkins, South African representative of the Food Machinery Corporation and formerly horticulturist and dried fruit officer of the Department of Agriculture at Elsenburg, who has for the past six months been in America making a study of the latest canning and spraying machinery, confirms this view. Ho considers that the outlook for deciduous fruit expansion in Cape Colony for canning, drying, and fresh shipment to English and Continental markets is bright. A recent survey of the Orange River Valley and its contemplated settlement may result in a heavy increase in the acreage devoted to fruit because of tho boundless fertility of the soil and irrigation facilities. Although the dried fruits indnstry is in a somewhat parlous condition, the citrus industry looks forward to profitable expansion. Cape Town has one of the finest shipside cold storage terminals in the world, with a capacity of approximately 800,000 cases. The Union Steamship Line, the principal fruit carrier, takes perishable fruit from this terminal to Southampton," , England, in seventeen days. Early peaches, plums, apricots, pears, and oranges are amongst the principal commodities. Mr. Perkins says that the high quality of the South African dried apricots is making a decided impression in British markets. All steamers aro now equipped with the finest type of dry refrigeration, and records show that during the seventeen-day ocean voyage across the Equator the temperature variation in chilled compartments can be held to one degree. ; . _ , Financing and development in faoutu Africa are on a comparative firm basis, says Mr. Perkins, and unlike some other British colonies, growth is on a "pay-as-you-go" basis —that is to say, out of earnings. As a result, the Government finds itself labouring under do undue fiscal difficulties. Quite apart from this review of the situation by Mr. Perkins, recent reports indicate that a marked improvement in the quality, especially of citrus fruits, has taken place of recent years, and the early peaches, plums, and pears received on the English market this season met with a keen demand and realised good prices. If an analysis of the prices received by Victorian growers this season is carefully made, it will be seen that even where remunerative returns wero received, the margin of profit is so small that many growers consider that it would pay them better to try to develop, markets nearer home than run the risk of losing not only a percentage of their fruit, but money, by shipping to a market so far away and on which tho values are unreliable.