The citrus harvest for the 2016-2017 season will reach record levels, announced the Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries.
The ministry said in a statement Monday in Tunis, the volume of citrus for the new season has reached 560,000 tons, up 47% compared with the last 2015-2016 season (380 thousand tons).
Maltese variety occupies the first place with a quantity of 187,000 tons. As for the production of “Naval” variety, it will be within the limits of 127,750 tons, while the production of “Clementines” will be this year of around 95,600 tons.
Lemon production will reach 72,330 tons, that of “Meski” 34 thousand tons and “Valencia” will amount to 13,700 tons. The quantities of “mandarins” will reach 10,500 tons.
The volume of production of other citrus varieties will be 18,800 tons, the ministry added.
The ministry said the area of planted citrus is estimated at 27 thousand hectares distributed over 18 governorates.
The Nabeul governorate ranks first in terms of land (18,000 hectares), followed by the governorates of Ben Arous and Kairouan in second place (1,600 hectares in each governorate) and those of Bizerte (1,315 hectares) and Jendouba (1,069 hectares).
Regarding the amounts of production for the 2016-2017 season, the Nabeul governorate ranks first with 450,000 tons, followed by the governorate of Ben Arous (31,870 tons), Bizerte (20,000 tons), Kairouan (14,700 tons), Jendouba (13,650 tons) and Beja (7000 tons).
