BUMPER CITRUS CROP IN PALESTINE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5321, 6 February 1947, Page 7

BUMPER CITRUS CROP IN PALESTINE

EXPORT (EfAPBCTED TO BRING £4,000,000. % Paestine's cit'rus groves, which practically ceased their production during the war, a^e back in business this year with a bumper crop which will probably provide the nation its No. 1 agricultural export item, states the Christian Science Monitor: "The 1946-47 crop is expected to bring something like four million pounds (16,000,000 dollars) into the' country," said Patrick J. Loftus, 'Government statistician. "That makes citrus far and away the nation's leading- farm export item, and second only to cut diamonds as top producer of revenue from a'broad." Arab villages from Gaza to Jerusalem and spreading Jewish Ki'bbutzin northward beyond . Tel Aviv are flag-g-ed with the deep green and first pale orang'e of Jaffa groves, many "of them trimmed an'd tended for the first time in five years. "It is o-ur first real crop since 1938," said a government agricultural expert. "It will give the industry a strong push on recovery road. Already the United Kingdom, which in prewar years took 70 to 75 per cent. of the export, has contracted for 6,500,000 cases at 16 shillings a case. •In . 1937, a before-the-war normal year, government reports say, Arab and Jewish farmers split "about evenly" a 4,183,057-pound take from citrus exports, and 300,00,0 dunnums (quarter acres) were under groves. Then war monopolised world shipping space. By 1939 Palestinian citrus groves were abandoned or destroyed. Fallen fruit was. left in the field or shovelled up for fertiliser, fuel and cattle fodder. The Government offered aid, made cash advances to growers who agreed to maintain their groves, granted temporary remission of rural property taxes, and fed all the fruit possible to Middle East armies. Canning factories were built. Peel oil was extracted and marketed. But only a small part of the normal crop could be utilised by industry. During 1940, 1941 and 1942 production toboganned to less than half of pre-war's 316,000,000 cases. Ptices dropped and lahour costs mounted. Exports to neigh'bouring countries during 1942 brought less 'than 60,000 pounds, 14 per cent. of the pre-war top. England resumed importing, on a limited scale, in 1943. The year's crop from abandoned groves brought 312,000 pounds. The take climbed past 1,000,000 pounds in 1944; neared 2,000,000 in 1945. Last year approximately 266,000 dunnums of soil were thrown into production — just 34,000 short of the 1937 total. During January, February and March — final three months of the harvest season — late Valencias, grapefruit and lemons brought almost 2,000,000 pounds in world markets. And in November the early Jaffa, Palestine's most popular variety of orange, began 4noving to buyers.