Italy's kiwifruit season is proving a difficult one for exporters, particularly in the European market, according to news reports in the country.
Sources suggest the current kiwifruit export season has not been a particularly good one for Italian suppliers, with sendings to other European markets delayed due to an overhang of New Zealand productand exporters obliged therefore to focus their attention almost exclusively on the overseas market.
Agri Notizie reported: 'There's also the problem of Greek kiwifruit, which is retaining more competitive prices than our product.'
Estimates published by Italian marketing and research agency CSO have confirmed that the country's national kiwifruit production should be 13 per cent higher this season than in 2010/11, at around 499,500 tonnes.
The figure represents a 4 per cent decrease on the 2008/09 season, but according to CSO remains at roughly the right level for the past three years in terms of production potential.
The marketable volume expected to be available during the course of 2011/12 is 459,000 tonnes, or 92 per cent, which marks a 12 per cent increase on the previous campaign.
While kiwifruit production in Italy has been hampered in the past couple of years by the presence of Batteriosi, a disease related to the Psa currently being tackled in New Zealand, this year's forecast production is 1 per cent up on the previous season thanks to increases in planted area in Veneto (+4 per cent), Lazio (+3 per cent) and Emilia Romagna (+2 per cent).
In contrast, production in Piedmont, Italy's second-largest kiwifruit producer after Lazio, has fallen for the first time ever, by 2 per cent.
Planted area for kiwifruit in Veneto, meanwhile, is set to be 12 per cent down year on year, CSO reported.
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