The South Africa Avocado Growers Association (SAAGA) has been pushing to have the regulations to resolve a sanitary issue that has seen Tanzania’s Hass and Fuerte avocado exports to South Africa confiscated at the Beit Bridge border crossing.
Though these were stopped because of a pest infestation scare, in Zimbabwe, climate change is forcing the horticultural sector to adapt.
At the turn of the new millennium, Zimbabwe’s Beitbridge District has been known to have a great livestock production. However, crop production, especially the horticulture sector, remained at its lowest due to erratic rainfall patterns.
Agriculture experts claim that Beitbridge requires an average of 400mm of rainwater for a successful farming season. However, in the last decade, most areas in the district have been receiving 50mm.
Such a setup has seen more farmers, both small-scale and commercial focusing more on cattle ranching. Climate change has altered seasons resulting in low rainfall totals especially in the southern region, which has crippled agriculture output.
The few farmers that have tried their hands-on horticulture often give up even those farming on community irrigation schemes.
Such a scenario resulted in Beitbridge residents importing vegetables from inland Zimbabwe of from South Africa, and this pushed the prices of horticulture-related products.
However, South African avocado importers expect Tanzanian produce to be available in the market by December.
Tanzanian avocados fill the production vacuum caused by the geographically low harvesting period in South Africa that falls between December and March.
Prices of the Hass type of avocado rose by 129 per cent recently with the average national price of a single Hass avocado reaching $2.10 in 2019, almost doubling in just a year.
