Papaya market supply data capture and analysis (PP20003)

Over the past six months, the project team has continued the time series of red papaya and yellow paw paw production volumes for the main growing areas of North Queensland. They currently have 26 weeks of production data for both red papaya and yellow paw paw.  

Total production volumes in a week dropped to its lowest volume in Week 34 (28/08/2022) to 248 pallets and then from there, volumes gradually increased to the highest weekly production volume in Week 42 (23/10/2022) to 627 pallets.  In the past 26 weeks a total of 11157 pallets of red papaya and a total of 1718 pallets of yellow paw paw from the growing areas of North Queensland have been recorded. This is broken down to 3605 pallets of red papaya on the Coastal areas and 7552 pallets of red papaya on the Tablelands, and 538 pallets of yellow paw paw on the Coastal areas and 1180 pallets of yellow paw paw on the Tablelands. 

To further break this down into which states the fruit has been sent to, a total of 5103.5 pallets of red papaya went to Brisbane markets, 3666.5 pallets of red papaya went to Sydney markets, 2031 pallets of red papaya went to Melbourne markets and 356 pallets of red papaya went to Adelaide markets.   With regards to yellow paw paw, a total of 871 pallets of yellow paw paw went to the Brisbane markets, 659 pallets of yellow paw paw went to the Sydney markets, 185 pallets of yellow paw paw went to the Melbourne markets and three pallets of yellow paw paw went to the Adelaide markets. 

This data is being distributed on a weekly basis with a one-week lag to papaya growers, industry, Hort Innovation and transport companies.  A summary of production figures was reported in the October Papaya Press, which have an overview of three months of data.

The objective of this project is to deliver an ongoing timeseries of red papaya and yellow paw paw production volume for the main growing areas of North Queensland.

Covering approximately 85 per cent of national production, dispatch data submitted by transport companies will be tallied to give a production estimate for the Tablelands and Coastal areas of Northern Queensland. 

Asking transport companies to report total pallets sent to the main eastern seaboard markets, the focus of the reports will estimate the weekly production volume in tonnes, with the assumption that pallet weight represents approximately 800kg of fruit. This information is important to growers and industry stakeholders, providing the opportunity to accurately identify production figures in the various primary growing regions.