AUSTRALIAN citrus growers will need to supply another city the size of Melbourne with fresh and processed fruit within the next decade.
This forecast growth in the domestic market to 2020 was outlined to growers at the Australian Citrus Industry conference in the Riverina last week.Globally, the citrus market is set to expand by more than 600 Melbourne equivalents by 2020.
Australian Citrus Growers chief executive officer Judith Damiani (OK)said the market opportunities for the Australian industry were enormous.
Ms Damiani said potential growth meant the industry could earn an extra $2.45 billion by 2020.
She said opportunities lay with increasing international demand, productivity, retail and non-retail demand.
Australian Citrus Growers is finalising a database of national plantings for this year to gauge future production.
Ms Damiani said the national crop would be produced by 2000 growers with 30,000ha of trees.
Navel oranges dominate the crop, with 35 per cent being sold on the domestic market, 40 per cent to processing (fresh juice) and 25 per cent to 40 export markets.
Valencia oranges have declined in production by 4.7 per cent while the common orange is up by one per cent and grapefruit up by 0.3 per cent.
Newly planted varieties in the main producing areas of the Murray Valley include late lane oranges, afourer mandarin and chislett navel oranges.
In South Australia, the popular varieties are late lane, navelina oranges, afourer, and washington navels.
More than 500ha of newly planted murcott mandarins in Queensland are yet to come into production.
