Attendees at this year's Europêch', the annual announcement of Europe's stonefruit forecasts which took place yesterday in Perpignan, in the south of France, were treated to a far more optimistic outlook than two years ago and a general improvement over last year's figures.
In 2007, unfavourable weather conditions resulted in significant drops in Spain, Italy and France, with Greece the only winner. The following year saw France and Italy once again hampered by poor weather, with Spain's recovery hindered by massive strikes and Greece remaining stable.
This year, the forecasts appeared to suggest that Europe's growers had finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. The total production volume of European peaches, nectarines and clingstone peaches is expected to rise from last year's 2.76m tonnes to 2.95m tonnes, according to Europêch' facilitator Eric Hostalnou of the Roussillon region's chamber of agriculture.
Thanks to an absence of any major climatic hazards, Italian and Spanish production volumes are expected to increase by 6 per cent, to reach 1.51m tonnes and 762,959 tonnes respectively, although in Spainmuch of this increase should come from nectarines. Greek production is predicted to rise2 per cent to 900,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, the forecast volume for French production, despite being down 14 per cent on the 2003-2007 average, shows an expectedincrease of 16 per cent, to some 326,014 tonnes. However, attendees were warned that the impact of a sudden bout of hail just over a week ago had not been taken into account in the final results.
As for apricots, Greek producers predict a significant decrease of 30 per cent due to a sudden drop in temperatures during the blooming period, while Spanish and Italian producers forecast little variation. Following a disastrous 2008, volumes of French apricots are expectinga jump of a massive 115 per cent.
