Fruit and International trade.

[ocelotl]

I've just noted that at this time of the year there are in the discount store Mangoes from Ecuador here in the old Anahuac. As you may think, I'm no stranger to mangoes, but realizing that there is a market so that as a country we import mangoes off-season makes me wonder about all the fruit trade worldwide. For me this is such a realization, even when fully aware of the Apple, Peach and Pear trade from the US to Mexico, while at the same time being used to see some people growing guava, apricot, pomegranate and fig trees in their yards in this city, or traversing huge avocado, pineapple, sugarcane, papaya, mango and lots other things among the almost ubiquitous corn while travelig by bus, or that we have been told that we are a major fruit exporting country and that we can grow almost anything if we plant it in the part of the country that has the ideal climate for it, be it Dates in the Mexicali Area, or Starfruit or Kiwi in Yautepec...

Or is it that i just find it weird to find certain kinds of fruits off-season?

[Icey]

No, you're not weird. We can now get strawberries and raspberries all the year round, plus many other types of fruit. These wouldn't normally grow in our pathetic climate at this time of the year, although with things generally being milder, someone in today's paper found 5 Kiwi fruits growing in her garden - ripe enough to eat!

Either the fruit's imported or forced in greenhouses (generally speaking), but I can't speak for mangoes. We seem to have those all year round as well, along with dates and figs, so obviously they've been brought in from abroad.

[yogi]

Like Oscelotl I've found myself amazed and what kinds of fruits and vegetables are available during the winter months in ice cold Chicago. Things like apples can be stored for months. but berries are very perishable in general. Then I think about what is going on with the immigration problem in Europe. Not all those people are fleeing war zones. Some are seeking refuge from drought and famine. At least some of that is due to changes in climate. The problem is only going to get worse. Coffee, for example, needs a very specific climate in which to grow and the heat that is coming does not bode well for coffee farmers. I'm certain that for all the abundance we have now, our grandchildren are going to see shortages and mass migrations that will dwarf today's events. Enjoy it while you can, I suppose.

[Icey]

I was reading today how coffee prices're expected to shoot up over here. I'm stocking up on it already, but I think you're right about future generations. What we have today, might be scarce in years to come, or totally unobtainable.

It's been around 4C here today, with even more rain. The usual spring crops might not even grow on the sodden land, and yet trees and bushes're producing fruit which we normally don't see until later on in the year, and that's due to the so-called warmer temperatures. These're taken from various spots around the country, but obviously miss these parts. It feels freezing outside, yet down south, it's been uncharacteristically warm.

[pilvikki]

here it's normal to have mild winters, but when trees start budding Canada and then get hit with a heavy frost, things go sideways pretty fast. Niagara area wine producers must be sweating, while waiting to see what'll happen.

and while we do have every sort of fruit here in the stores, often it's already getting over-ripe and better eaten on the way home, n/m two days later...

things certainly are different from when I was a kid in finland. at Christmas it was customary to have small oranges and apples in the tree, for it was such a treat to have fruit in winter. and the winters were long; pass the vitamins.

[Icey]

Awww, that sounded nice.

Well we're expecting a rapid temperature fall up here soon. Trees and shrubs've got quite large buds on them already, but they'll either go dormant or die off when the really foul weather hits, which I'm sure it will. Down south, they'll probably be basking in sunshine at the end of the month, while us ....

[pilvikki]

not fair....

[Icey]

It's not, but tbh, I wouldn't like sunshine all the time - just for these parts to be a bit warmer, with no biting winds. Don't think we'll see much of a change. It's been like this for as many years as I've been up here.

[pilvikki]

sure, a bit of rain is needed every so often. say, every second or third day this time of year would keep my roses going. but preferably around 4 AM.

I can't handle too much rain/cloud of my brain starts to shut down. I think the parts still flickering are solar powered?

[Icey]

LOL. You'd be completely brain-dead up here then.

This morning, there was one puny opening in the clouds where a shaft of sunlight managed to appear, but the entire sky was a dark grey colour apart from that one little bit. It wasn't enough to ripen a gooseberry!

[pilvikki]

[Icey]

LOL!!!

[ocelotl]

Just to round the comment in this thread. Off season equatorian Paraiso mangoes were at 60 pesos the kilogram. On season Paraiso mangoes from Tabasco, Veracruz and Guerrero got to 10 pesos the kilogram at the bottom... Apple almost never gets below 20 pesos the kilogram. Even if it comes from Chihuahua.

[Icey]

I can't convert to your currency very well, but the mangoes at 60 pesos for a kilo are just a little bit cheaper than what we might pay for them in the UK. We pay more than double your price for apples though. : (

[yogi]

A lot of the cost of winter produce around here is due to transportation. There are no locally grown crops outside of the summer season. The price swings for tomatoes can be dramatic between the two seasons, but it's not so changeable for things like mangoes. Mangoes come from down south no matter what the time of year. I'd guess England has an even higher cost for transportation so that the price swings must be even greater there than here. I don't see a 6:1 price change in the off season of mangoes, but 2:1 would be typical.

[ocelotl]

Almost the same happens with tomatoes, lime, avocado, strawberry, blackberries and several other fruits... Since the off season production is destined mostly for export, the price range can be 6 to 1 to the bottom price on season...

Roughly we need 19 Mexican pesos for a US dollar or 25 for a British pound right now.

[Kellemora]

When we were still in the produce business, technically before my time, but we still raised produce for ourselves well into my upper teen years. We had several greenhouses made of Saran. To not confuse this with Saran Wrap, the Saran I'm speaking of is more like a close meshed window screen material which allowed for gas exchange inside to outside and vice versa, in other words it breathed. Where the plastic used on Quonset or the Glass used on our other greenhouses needed ventilation.
Saran houses extended our growing season by roughly 2-1/2 to 3 months, which was a lot for the St. Louis area. It often meant we could get two crops where others could only get one crop, so it was worth having them.

Some of our outdoor crops had an open framework of tall poles with guide wires stretched over the tops. These were there so we could pull a cover over a good portion of the crops if there was a chance of frost. If you can keep the dew from falling on the plants, they could normally make it through a cold night without suffering damage.