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| ISSUE 61: YEAR-END 2020 |  |
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| NEW YEAR MESSAGE FROM TFNET | ||
2020 has been an unprecedented year which witnessed how disruptions can shape the dynamics of commonplace engagements. As rapidly as the pandemic swept nations, the responses to mitigate these disruption were equally swift, with various adjustments introduced to fit into the ‘new norm’. Read the full message here. |
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| A four-part virtual workshop series on “Safeguarding the Banana Industry from Fusarium Wilt: Research Updates and Opportunities in Asia Pacific” was held on October 20, October 27, November 3, and November 10 via Zoom, organized by the International Tropical Fruits Network (TFNet), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GDAAS), Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS), and the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). | ||
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| UPCOMING TFNET ACTIVITIES | OTHER EVENTS | ||||||
National Fruit Symposium (Malaysia) International Symposium on Tropical Fruits (Virtual Symposium) |
FAVHEALTH2021 Fruit Logistica International Mango Symposium |
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MEMBERSHIP REMINDER |
EXPERT MEMBER REGISTRATION |
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Benefits of being a TFNet Expert
Register as a TFNet Expert here. |
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ISTF2019 PROCEEDINGS STILL AVAILABLE |
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INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES 2021 |
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| FAO launches the UN’s International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021 | The International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV-2021) Background Paper | ||||||
| The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, launched the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021 (IYFV) with an appeal to improve healthy and sustainable food production through innovation and technology and to reduce food loss and waste. | This background paper outlines the benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption, but also examines the various aspects of the fruit and vegetable sector from a food systems approach: from sustainable production and trade to loss and waste management. | ||||||
TROPICAL FRUIT NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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CHINA: 400M middle-class sector ‘promising market’ for PH goods |  |
MALAYSIA: MARDI launches food technology innovations, highlighting tropical fruit products | ||||
| The 400-million strong middle-class group in China is a promising export market and the “next biggest opportunity” just waiting to be tapped by Filipino enterprises, according to a Beijing-based trade expert. | The Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) launched its food technology innovations and the Technology ‘Test Bed’ Laboratory for the Melaka Mardistation. | ||||||
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KENYA: Avocado export prices surge 33% |  |
PAKISTAN: Farmers suffer big losses as guava output drops | ||||
| Export prices of avocado have risen to Sh800 (USD 7.15) per four-kilogramme pack in November, propped up demand for the few supplies available in the market as the main crop season dragged to a close. | The output of guava orchids has been severely affected by mealybug insects due to which growers are suffering losses amounting to 60-70% in and around Larkana district, said Sindh Chamber of Agriculture President Sirajul Oliya Rashdi. | ||||||
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CAMBODIA: Companies start application for mango exports to China |  |
USA: Del Monte’s new ‘juicier and sweeter’ pink pineapple is in stores now | ||||
Forty-eight companies, plantation owners and farming communities have applied to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to export fresh mangoes to China, its data show. |
Del Monte Fresh Produce has created the Pinkglow Pineapple that is now available in stores including in Pennsylvania. | ||||||
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CAMEROON: 16,498 tons of banana exported in Nov-2020, down by 0.21% MoM |  |
PAKISTAN: First report of Curvularia lunata on bananas | ||||
| The decline of exports can be attributed to less production of state-owned banana companies. | Banana fruits infected with rot disease were collected from the local market of Lahore, Pakistan. The observed symptoms were dry, decayed, sunken lesions with dark grey to greenish in color, damaging quality of the fruit. | ||||||
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VIETNAM: Experts propose solutions to boost agriculture industry |  |
MALAYSIA: Durian peak harvest season begins | ||||
| The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted local agricultural products and exports, especially to China, disrupting agricultural value chains and posing risks to farming households. | Although processing factories temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the orchards continued to operate as usual in Malaysia | ||||||
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BANGLADESH: Dragon fruit has a bright future in the global market |  |
AUSTRALIA: Company demonstrates commercial viability of banana waste conversion technology | ||||
| Dragon fruit is turning out to be a profitable crop for the 25,000 farmers engaged in its cultivation, bringing about a slew of young farmers into the fold. | Agricultural waste technology company Papyrus Australia (ASX: PPY) has re-confirmed its presence in Egypt where it is offering revenue opportunities for banana producers in the region using their waste. | ||||||
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MEXICO: Mango exports grow by 4.5% in value |  |
SPAIN: Smart mango harvesting through 5G | ||||
| Mexico’s mango exports between January and October 2020 increased by 4.5% in value over the same period of the previous year, totaling 325.7 million dollars. | A pilot project to provide mango harvesting machines with artificial intelligence was launched to help decide in real-time if the fruit is ready to be harvested based on size, appearance, and point of maturity. | ||||||
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JAPAN: Peak shipping season for large citrus grown in Kumamoto |  |
INDIA: Farmers dump guavas in garbage vehicle as prices crash | ||||
| The banpeiyu is one of the world’s largest citrus, and farms in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, are busy sending the fruits nationwide as it is its peak shipping season. | A video showing a group of farmers dumping freshly-harvested guavas into a civic garbage collection vehicle here has gone viral on social media, with the experts saying that a bumper crop of the fruit this year has resulted in its prices falling. | ||||||
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AUSTRALIA: Maggots found in NT mangoes sent to SA |  |
INDIA: APMC market gets Alphonso mangoes from Malawi in Southeast Africa | ||||
| Mangoes sent to South Australia from a Northern Territory supplier are being withdrawn from supermarket shelves and fumigated or destroyed after the discovery of Jarvis fruit fly maggots. | Though the mango season is yet to begin in India, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Vashi has received a total of 1500 boxes of Malavi mangoes from Africa. | ||||||
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PAPUA NEW GUINEA: On the hunt for wild bananas |  |
PHILIPPINES: UPLB researchers find indigenous fruits rich in antioxidants | ||||
| The banana has its earliest origins in Papua New Guinea, where it was domesticated by indigenous communities at least 7,000 years ago. | Fruits indigenous to the country have been found to be rich in antioxidants by researchers from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. | ||||||
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VIETNAM: Irradiation Secures Fruit Exports |  |
KENYA: Exports of mangoes to EU to resume in December | ||||
| Using irradiation to disinfest fruit is gaining traction in the premium produce trade, and Viet Nam now plans to expand the service to compete in additional markets. | Kenya is likely to resume exports of mangoes to the European Union (EU) in December after a period of five years, a government official said. | ||||||
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MADAGASCAR: A special year for the lychee harvest campaign |  |
AUSTRALIA: Mangoes in short supply out of West Australia as Ord Valley production plummets | ||||
In Madagascar, lychee exporters have been living the most important eight days of the season, the opening date for the fruit harvest. The only real unknown: will Western buyers put litchi on the holiday table? |
Mango growers in Kununurra are facing one of their most challenging mango harvests yet, off the back of a decade of dwindling yields out of Western Australia’s Ord Irrigation Scheme. | ||||||
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VIETNAM: Ensuring standards, quality in exports of Luc Ngan “thieu” litchi to Japan |  |
CABI: Papaya mealybug could spread worldwide new research warns | ||||
| Bac Giang province has worked with the Plant Protection Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and exporting enterprises to prepare documents, conduct surveys, and issue codes for a planting area of 50 hectares of “thieu” litchi, for export to Japan. | Scientists from the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International have mapped the potential global spread of the devastating papaya mealybug (Paracoccus marginatus), highlighting new areas in Africa, Asia and the Americas into which this pest could potentially invade. | ||||||
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PHILIPPINES: Japan seen to wrest back top banana importer status |  |
SPAIN: Lack of water poses threat to the expansion of avocado in Malaga | ||||
| JAPAN is poised to overtake China as the Philippines’s top banana export market this year as total purchase by Japan ending September grew 8.8 percent on the back of firmer consumer demand during the Covid-19 pandemic. | Avocado cultivation in Malaga has grown exponentially in recent decades. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, the province has gone from having 50 avocado trees in 1943 to 1.5 million avocado trees in almost 7,000 hectares. | ||||||
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HONDURAS: Costa Rica’s leading Hass avocado supplier |  |
COLOMBIA: These biodegradable plates made from pineapples will sprout if you plant them in soil | ||||
| Honduras’ Hass avocado has gone from accounting for 4.17% of all Costa Rican imports of this fruit in 2018 to 30% in the first nine months of 2020, positioning the Central American country as Costa Rica’s leading supplier. | A company in Colombia is making eco-friendly plates out of the tops of old pineapples. And just like a pineapple top you can plant in your backyard, the plates made by Lifepack contain seeds that can sprout in soil. |
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VIETNAM: Agricultural exports to US market need support of overseas Vietnamese companies |  |
INDIA: Gene-editing could be way forward for improved crop, absence of regulatory regime holding back commercial use | ||||
| Strengthening the connection with overseas Vietnamese businesses in the US is seen as a good opportunity to link and develop distribution channels of specialty products of Vietnam in general, and the Mekong Delta, in particular, to a potential market. | India’s use of technology for crop improvement might be finally catching up after years of neglect with Indian scientists making progress in using gene-editing to develop Vitamin A-rich banana and improved varieties of rice, millets, pulses, and tomato. | ||||||
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CAMBODIA: Banana exports up by 225% more in first nine months |  |
INDIA: Vietnam appeals to open Indian market to dragon fruit exports | ||||
| Cambodia exported more than 235,171 tonnes of fresh yellow bananas to international markets in the first nine months of this year, up more than 225.69 % year-on-year, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon said. | Vietnamese Ambassador to India Pham Sanh Chau has urged the Indian government to create favourable conditions, remove tariff and non-tariff barriers, and simplify administrative procedures in order to facilitate the two countries’ access to each other’s markets. | ||||||
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INDIA: Area under banana cultivation goes up in Tiruchy district |  |
AUSTRALIA: More Pacific fruit pickers bound for NT | ||||
| Banana cultivation has crossed last year’s area and horticulture department officials said an additional thousand hectares were likely to come under cultivation by the end of 2020. | A second group of mango pickers is expected to touch down in the Northern Territory after flying from Vanuatu to help with the Top End harvest. | ||||||
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PHILIPPINES: Pineapple, watermelon growers post record ROI |  |
USA: Banana imports edge slightly higher | ||||
| Pineapple and watermelon are currently the most profitable fruit commodities in the Philippines with growers posting record high return of investments (ROI) of 377 % and 220 %, respectively among other fruit growers in 2019. | Bananas remain America’s favorite fruit, but growth is slow at the top.
U.S. banana imports from August 2019 to July were 5.12 million metric tons, up less than 1% compared with the previous year. |
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RECENT LITERATURE ON TROPICAL FRUIT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT |
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Usage of Heat Treatment and Modified Atmosphere Packaging to Maintain Fruit Firmness of Fresh Cut Cavendish Banana (Musa cavendishii) |  |
Badnaviruses and banana genomes: a long association sheds light on Musa phylogeny and origin | ||||
| Utama, N.A. (2020) Journal: Planta Tropika DOI |
Chabannes, M., et al. (November 2020) Journal: Molecular Plant Pathology DOI |
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Detection of Chemically Matured Mango Fruits Using Laplacian Descriptors and Scale Determinants |  |
Influence of shade intensity on growth, biomass allocation, yield and quality of pineapple in mango-based intercropping system | ||||
| Laxmi, V (November 2020) Proceedings: ISMAC-CVB 2020 DOI |
Kishore, K. (2020) Journal: Scientia Horticulturae DOI |
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Effects of two growth hormones and three manure formulas on a variety of papaya (Carica papaya L.) in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Mali |  |
Determination of Pests and Beneficial Species in Avocado Orchards in Antalya Province | ||||
| Sidibe, A., et al. (December 2020) Journal: African Journal of Agricultural Research DOI |
Kahraman, T., et al. (December 2020) Journal: Horticultural Studies |
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Characterization, Release Pattern, and Cytotoxicity of Liposomes Loaded With α-Mangostin Isolated From Pericarp of Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) |  |
Combination effect of citric acid and hot water treatment on the quality of pulp and pericarp of rambutan fruit | ||||
| Thi K.T.P., et al. (November 2020) Journal: Natural Product Communications DOI |
Sanches, A.G. et al. (2020) Journal: Horticulture and Postharvest Research DOI |
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Effect of cultivar and maturity on functional properties low molecular weight carbohydrate and antioxidant activity of Jackfruit seed flour |  |
The difference between calcium ion levels in saliva before and after consuming red dragon fruit (Hylocereus polyrhizus) | ||||
| Kushwaha, R. et al. (December 2020) Journal: Food Processing and Preservation DOI |
Fakhrurrazi, et al. (2020) Journal: Padjadaran Journal of Dentistry DOI |
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