This protocol has been welcomed with much excitement in the local citrus industry. To gain some insight on what this protocol is about, OFM Business Hour presenter, Olebogeng Motse, spoke to Hannes de Waal, managing director of the Sundays River Citrus Company (SRCC) and vice-chairman of the Citrus Growers Association. 

See PODCAST below 

De Waal says that "lemons cannot be shipped at very low temperatures. So the agreement protocol that we have always had with China, we referred to it as the US protocol. It requires shipment for 24 days at -0.5°C."

The cold temperature "actually hurts" the skin of the lemons, says De Waal. When the lemons arrive in China, the cold temperature effectively burns the skin of the fruit, which means that the fruit arrives damaged.

This agreement is extremely important because it allows for the temperature to be lifted to 3°C, says De Waal. " the 3 degrees will just give us a bit more of a margin," explains De Waal. 

He asserts that the growth in lemon exports is substantial and that South Africa will reach an export rate of 32 and 34 million cartons. 

"For us, this is fantastic news. It's really going to assist us in order to facilitate this growth. The citrus industry has grown exponentially over the last decade and a half since the end of the late nineties but you know, you need markets and if u don't have access to China or any of the big markets, it's obviously detrimental," explains De Waal. 

De Waal says the use for lemons in China is enormous. They use the skins, the juice for ice lollies, in tea-drinking, especially in Hong Kong and China. 

"So eastern countries make use of lemons a lot," explains De Waal. 

"We actually did a study, as an industry, in Saudi Arabia three years ago. We were surprised at the use of lemons there that was even more than what we thought. We chose Saudi Arabia at the time because it may be surprising to people that countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia, today, are the biggest consumers of South African lemon in the world," concludes De Waal.

OFM News/Lee Simmons