Italy’s peach and nectarine crop is expected to be around 1,147,000 tonnes this season, just below 16 per cent down on last year’s record volume, offering the country’s producers and exporters some hope of a stable market following recent episodes of highly damaging oversupply.
During a meeting in Lleida, Spain, organised by Catalonian association Afrucat, Elisa Macchi of Italian organisation CSO reported on what she said was a “more balanced” forecast, with decreased output more or less throughout the Italian peninsula resulting from recent poor weather.
In Emilia-Romagna, Italy’s largest stonefruit supplier, volumes are expected to be 15 per cent down on the previous season, with a 10 per cent fall in both Piedmont and Veneto.
Speaking at the recent Macfrut trade fair in Rimini, Macchi commented: “In the South we estimate a decrease of 33 per cent for the earliest harvest, 15 per cent in the early period and 25 per cent for late peaches.”
Even if a smaller crop relieves some of the pressure felt in the market last time around, one of Italy’s main challenges remains a pronounced peak in production during June and July, a period which has increasingly coincided with Spain’s own peak.
In the last three years, Italy’s fresh peach and nectarine exports have reportedly dipped by 12 per cent in volume terms, and by 5 per cent in terms of value.
For apricots, meanwhile, Italy remains Europe's largest producer but it has also forecast a fall in volumes to just above 201,000 tonnes, compared with 236,000 tonnes in 2016.
