Cepea, January 16, 2025 – Even with the return of rainfall in the citrus belt of São Paulo and Triângulo Mineiro from October/24 on, the scenario for the 2025/26 season continues uncertain. Flowers that opened after the rains were considered satisfactory, however, the development of the crop still depends on weather conditions during the season.
The 2024/25 crop is estimated at 223.14 million 40.8-kilo boxes of oranges, for a decrease of 27.4% compared to the previous season (2023/24) – data from Fundecitrus.
Weather adversities have been hampering the production for five consecutive seasons, which resulted in restricted inventories of juice.
Cepea calculations indicate that Brazilian orange juice stocks may not recover during the 2024/25 crop, ending this season technically zero. Thus, a very positive 2025/26 season will be necessary to have at least a slight recovery.
Not even a decrease of exports in the 2024/25 season will be enough to compensate for the reduction in the volume of fruit processed, which will maintain the demand from the industry at high levels.
Moreover, Florida has been registering a decrease in inventories and may need to import more inputs from Brazil, which helps to sustain quotations in the domestic market. Besides this scenario of limited production and stocks in Brazil, data released on December 10 by the USDA indicate that the 2024/25 orange crop may total 12 million 40.8-kg boxes, downing 20% (or 3 million boxes) compared to the report released in October (15 million boxes). Besides the citrus greening disease, the production drop is also related to the hurricane Milton in Florida in early October 2024.
For 2025, the conditions reported in the Brazilian citrus grove may support prices throughout the year.
(Cepea-Brazil)
Centro de Estudos Avançados em Economia Aplicada – CEPEA-Esalq/USP
