A restriction by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and drought are expected to lower Mexican mango exports by more than 3.5 million boxes to the U.S. and other markets.
“The drop in Mexican mango exports to the United States (the largest buyer of the fruit) is due to the decrease in production and the USDA restrictions on Sundays,” José Ángel Crespo, president of Empacadoras de Mango de Exportación (EMEX) told Forbes Mexico.
By the end of 2024, Mexico expects to export more than 62 million boxes of mangos to the U.S., which bought more than $471 million last year alone.
In 2023, mango producers sold 65,935,604 boxes, while in 2022 64,873,475 boxes of the fruit were produced in Sinaloa, Guerrero, Nayarit, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Jalisco, and Colima.
Other than the U.S., Mexican mangos are consumed in Canada, Spain, Japan, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Mango producers stopped harvesting the fruit due to restrictions from the United States government, especially hydrothermal processes in southern Mexico were affected, said Crespo.
Due to not working on Sundays during the mango harvest season in southern Mexico, the exports decreased by 10 to 15 percent.
Mexico produces Haden, Tommy, Kent, and Keitt mangos, which allows for the production to be available almost all year round in the Mexican market and for the export of the fruit.
Sergio Roberto Márquez Berber, researcher at the Department of Plant Sciences of the Autonomous University of Chapingo, pointed out that there will be a decrease in mango production in 2025 in some entities such as Nayarit.
The main threat to the production of mango and other foods is climate change, which has accelerated in the last 6 decades, he added.
“Unfortunately, all models predict that climate change will continue to increase. All the areas, which are located in front of the Pacific Ocean, important for mango in Mexico were affected by drought,” said Marquez Berber.
Daniel Ibarra, president of the Association of Mango Producers in the Free Zone, said that the 355 mango producers in the municipalities of Ahome, Choix, Guasave, El Fuerte, and Sinaloa de Leyva export 67,000 tons of the food.
“The Free Zone is a late commercial zone for Mexico, since it is the last producing area of ????Ataulfo ??mango in the season for export, as well as Kent and Keitt. At the end of September 2024, producers from Ahome, Choix, Guasave, El Fuerte, and Sinaloa de Leyva sold more than 16,025,000 boxes of mango in the United States and other countries, when compared to the 16,365,000 boxes in 2023,” he explained.
