Unfavourable weather, especially in the south, is likely to reduce the Italian citrus harvest by 11 per cent to 2.7million tonnes during the 2002-03 season, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US department of agricultre. Within this, orange production is expected to drop 11 per cent to 1.5mt, compared with 1.8mt the year before, easy-peelers 15 per cent to 519,000t as against 611,000t, and grapefruit 16 per cent to 43,000t, as opposed to 51,000t. This follows poor summer weather in southern regions, especially in Sicily, Calabria, Apulia and Campania.

This situation could not have come at a worse time for growers and exporters who have already faced difficult times over the last couple of years. These have stemmed from water shortages, rising production costs, poor marketing and industry fragmentation - a situation compounded by heavy competition, particularly from Spain and other Mediterranean and North African countries such as Israel, Cyprus and Morocco.

Sicily, famous for its blood orange has endured the worst of the soaring summer temperatures and drought two years in a row. The situation has been made worse by volcanic activity.

'We have had many problems this year,' said Vincenzo Falcone of the Italian association of horticultural and citrus producers, Inea. 'Paucity of rainfall and water for irrigation hit the plants hard in the summer and then in the autumn, fruit has been under threat from volcanic ash. In some cases there has been a little superficial damage but fruit quality is not in the least affected. This has affected oranges in the Catania area of the island only. It is very difficult to quantify the effects in volume terms however as the harvest will not start on blood oranges until the end of the month, between Christmas and New Year. It is likely that a lot of fruit will be fine visually once it is dusted off.'

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