Orange Harvest Is Declining In The USA

 | Jun 13, 2017 08:29AM ET

Orange harvest is declining in the USA

The US Department of Agriculture has updated the forecast of the orange harvest in 2016/17 agricultural season. It may be 14.8% less than in the 2015/16 season. Will orange juice prices advance?

According to the previous forecast for May by the USDA, in the current 2016/17 season, 120.37 million boxes of oranges (41 kg) will be harvested in the US. The June forecast is slightly better - it is expected that the crops will increase and amount to 120.87 million boxes. This is less than the 141.89 million boxes in 2015/16 season and 17.5% less than the 146.6 million boxes in 2014/15 season.

Note that on April 1, 2017, the US reserves of frozen orange amounted to 0.542 million pounds. This is 27.8% less the 2016 indicator of the same period, which amounted to 0.751 million pounds.