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Sílvio Ávila
Likewise, the perspectives expressed by Brapex president
Rodrigo Martins for the national market in 2017 refer to low
prices due to abundant supply, within the theory of the crop
cycles. “Several producers got excited by the high prices in ear-
ly 2016, increased their planted areas and are now facing the
reality of having to sell their fruit below production costs”, he
ascertained in early January 2017. As for exports, still repre-
senting 2%of the entire production volume, he anticipates the
trend for bigger shipments abroad, involving more fruit and
better quality, besides the still favorable exchange rate.
Europe is the biggest destination for Brazilian papayas,
where the leading buyers in 2016 were the Netherlands, Por-
tugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany, followed by
the United States. With the latter country, Brazil has recent-
ly signed an agreement that should make exports less com-
plicated. Changes in the working plan anticipate speedier
harvesting processes, fruit treatment and packaging, includ-
ing more flexible time periods for handling the fruit, which,
according to Martins, could gradually increase sales to the
American market.
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Dream and reality
Price and supply also impacted
upon papaya exports in 2016
surveys of themain producing regions, with
reflections upon production, prices and ex-
ports. Domestic prices soared to the point
that they reached the highest values in the
series available to the organ since 2001 rela-
tive to Espírito Santo, thus ensuring positive
results to the producers, as ascertained, in
spite of soaring production costs.
In the first half of 2016, says Rodri-
go Martins, from Brapex, papaya prices
reached all-time records. According to his
information, the Papaya in Espírito Santo
and South Bahia went so far as to fetch a
farmgate price of R$ 6 per kilogram, whilst
the Formosa fetched R$ 4 per kilogram in
the field. These high prices jeopardized
exports and were a factor in the small-
er volumes shipped abroad over the year
(down 4.67%), and, of course, they are
also responsible for the smaller produc-
tion volumes in the orchards.
As of the second half of 2016, according
to the same source, prices began to drop:
the price of the Formosa papaya began to
recede and stabilized at an average of R$
1 per kilogram, until late November, when
it plummeted to R$ 0.30 to R$ 0.40 per ki-
logram, remaining as such until late Janu-
ary 2017. According to him, the same thing
occurred with the Papaya, which registered
very high production volumes as of Sep-
tember, leading to “absurdly low prices” to
an average of R$ 0.30/kg/farmgat
