Santa Catarina apple harvest ends with production almost 24% lower in 2024

Fruit growers in Santa Catarina harvested around 423 thousand tons of apples in the 2023/2024 harvest, the smallest harvest in the historical series mapped by the Observatório Agro Catarinense. This volume is around 24% lower than that recorded in the previous harvest, when production reached almost 555,2 thousand tons. The data are from the Center for Socioeconomics and Agricultural Planning (Epagri/Cepa).

The apple harvest in Santa Catarina ended in June. According to the Socioeconomics and Rural Development analyst at Epagri/Cepa, Rogério Goulart Júnior, climate problems harmed the productivity of the orchards, especially the Gala and Fuji cultivars. These two represent almost 98% of the total apples produced in Santa Catarina. “Excessive rainfall during the flowering period reduced the productivity of the orchards and also led to phytosanitary problems”, explains the analyst.

Gala Apple

The cultivar with the greatest reduction in productivity, compared to the previous harvest, was the Gala apple. In the 2023/2024 harvest, average productivity was 27,9 tons per hectare, a reduction of 27,35% compared to the 38,4 tons per hectare recorded in the 2022/2023 harvest. Total production of Gala apples was approximately 195,6 thousand tons, a reduction of 26,43% compared to the previous harvest. The data is available on the Observatório Agro Catarinense and Infoagro websites.

Fuji apple

In the case of Fuji apples, data collected by Epagri/Cepa indicate a 26% reduction in productivity for the 2023/2024 harvest. The average productivity of the variety was just over 25,7 tons per hectare. In the 2022/2023 agricultural year, productivity reached 34,7 tons per hectare. Total production was less affected because the harvested area increased by around 5,7% (from 8 thousand hectares to almost 8,5 thousand hectares). In total, just over 218 thousand tons of Fuji apples were harvested in Santa Catarina in the 2023/2024 harvest, which represents a drop of 21,79% compared to the volume recorded in the previous harvest.

Early apples

The production of early apples also decreased, however, for a different reason. In this case, it was the reduction in the harvested area that affected the volume. While in 2022/2023 363 hectares of the variety were harvested, in the 2023/2024 harvest the harvested area was 308 hectares, a reduction of 15,15%. Productivity grew, reaching close to 30,7 tons per hectare, an increase of 5,66%. As a result, the total production volume of early apples, in the 2023/2024 harvest, was 9,45 thousand tons, a reduction of 10,35% compared to the previous harvest.