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After reaching a five-year high in 2024, Korea’s potato production will return to average levels in 2025.

This provides an update to the report Citrus Annual_Brasilia_Brazil_BR2024-0043. The report has been edited from its original version to revise estimates and update the Post forecasts for production, consumption and exports.

Korea’s marketing year (MY) 2024/25 citrus production is forecast down 2.6 percent to 565,000 MT, a 10-year low, on gradually declining acreage and adverse weather conditions. Jeju Island, where nearly all Korean citrus is grown, experienced a prolonged summer heat wave lasting into mid-September, followed by excessive fall rain, which caused fruit cracking and rot.

Korea depends heavily on imports to meet the demand for dried fruits, though overall demand has seen a slight decrease over the last five years. In 2023, the United States held roughly 53% of the market share for imported dried fruit.

The Brazilian orange crop for Marketing Year (MY) 2024/25 is forecast at 320 million 90-pound boxes (MBx) - standard reference, equivalent to 13 million metric tons (MMT), a decrease of 15 percent compared to the previous Post estimate for MY 2023/24 (378 million boxes or 15.42 MMT).

Korea’s fresh pear production is projected to rise by 10.2 percent to 202,000 metric tons (MT) in marketing year (MY) 2024/25, helped by favorable weather and lower incidences of diseases and pests compared to the previous year.

The Brazilian orange crop for Marketing Year (MY) 2023/24 is forecast at 378 million 90-pound boxes (MBx) - standard reference, equivalent to 15.42 million metric tons (MMT), a decrease of 7.3 percent compared to previous Post estimate (408 million boxes or 16.5 MMT), primarily due to poor weather conditions that culminated in a more severe drought, as well as impacts from greening.

The 2023 U.S. Agricultural Export Yearbook provides a statistical summary of U.S. agricultural commodity exports to the world during the 2023 calendar year.

The Brazilian orange crop for Marketing Year (MY) 2023/24 is forecast at 408 million 40.8-kg boxes (MBx) - standard reference, equivalent to 16.5 million metric tons (MMT), a decrease of 1.03 percent compared to the estimate of current crop MY 2022/23 (around 412.3 million boxes or 16.67 MMT), due to the incidence of greening, which has been affecting Brazil’s citrus belt.

Already reeling from high fruit prices, Korean consumers will face another year of expensive, lower-quality apples. Korea’s apple production for marketing year (MY) 2023/24 fell 25 percent year-on-year after orchards suffered a series of adverse weather events in 2023.

Ample opportunities exist for U.S. agricultural exports to South Korea. Highlighted in the chart above, U.S. agricultural product exports were a record $9.5 billion in 2022, up 2 percent from 2021. South Korea is the sixth largest export market for the United States, thanks in part to a successful free trade agreement (KORUS) between the two countries and a robust demand for high-quality U.S. food products.

Korean fresh pear production is expected to decrease 20 percent in Marketing Year (MY) 2023/24 as adverse weather events struck orchards throughout spring flowering and into the summer. Supplies of high-quality pears are expected to be below average because of high rates of damaged fruit.