The accession of 10 new members to the European Union this year increased the trading bloc’s apple production capacity by almost 50 per cent overnight. However, the production curve is moving in different directions in members old and new.

While production of apples in the European Union 15 had fallen to less than eight million tonnes by the end of the 2003 harvest, in the 10 new member states, the figure is rising towards to the 3.5m tonne mark. Of the countries that joined the EU this year, Poland immediately became the largest producer of apples in the enlarged trading bloc.

The varietal mix in the EU25 is also changing, mainly as a result of the accession countries, with volumes of Golden Delicious and Red Delicious on the wane and Gala and Braeburn, as well as Idared, on the way up. Golden Delicious, it must be added, is still far and away the most widely produced variety, but a preference in certain markets for bi-coloured fruit is pushing new favourites towards the front of the planting queue.

Older varieties dominate the eastern European orchards, with production charts showing large increases in the “other” category, reserved for types that have limited commercial viability in the west. But with high domestic consumption of apples, these varieties are still consumed heavily in the east.

All major producing nations have registered a decrease in their national orchards. Apple production in the EU15 is now spread over 285,000 hectares. The new members can boast 265,000ha of apple orchards, but Poland accounts for around 170,000ha of that amount.

It can easily be deduced from these figures, therefore, that production efficiency is lacking in the new members, who between them produce half the amount of apples on the same expanse of land.

The fragmentation of the industry in the new 10 is a major obstacle to putting this right in the short-term. Lower productivity and yields are likely to be a fact of life for Polish apple producers for some time to come, and with quality and varieties not yet up to speed with the demands of western European customers, it will undoubtedly take a while for producers to develop an export culture and build up the volume to become a competitive force in the EU internal market. But investment from the west and the availability of EU monies should hasten the switch into more marketable varieties and encourage the adoption of more up to date production techniques and technology.

Where Poland is likely to feel the short-term benefits, however, is the processing market. While fresh apple consumption is showing a slight decline across the EU, to 21kg per capita, the aggregate fresh and processed consumption of apples was up to 28kg. That figure does not take the new member states into account, but it does illustrate the potential for Poland to clean up in the processing sector, an area in which it has already enjoyed considerable success with apples.

Internally, France remains the largest exporter of apples - shipping more than 600,000t to other member states in 2003. Italy has seen its exports jump noticeably in the last three years, while Belgium and the Netherlands have experienced 10 years of largely static overseas sales figures. France and Italy both export more than 100,000t of apples outside the EU, while most other production areas register minimal export volumes.

For a period in the late 1990s, the trade balance in apples was converging, but since 2000, the dependence on imported fruit to maintain year-round supply has seen imports increase rapidly while exports slid in the opposite direction. By the end of 2003, the balance was broadly similar to that of 1993.

Apple imports into the EU are moving towards the 800,000t mark, predominantly from the southern hemisphere. This has risen by around 250,000t in the last decade, a period which has seen production in the EU decline by 10 per cent. New Zealand is still the largest exporter of apples to the EU, but every country supplying the region has seen its figures increase in the last three years. Chile and South Africa are not far behind New Zealand and both have registered significant expansion in volume sent to the EU since 1993.

On the other hand, EU exports of apples have declined. Russia is the only major importer of EU-grown apples and its demand has halved to below 100,000t a year. No other individual non-EU country imports more than 50,000t a year.

The great unknown in the apple equation, of course, is China. Total global apple production in 2003 was 57.9mt, a whopping 41 per cent rise since 1990, when just 41mt were produced. China is the largest global producer by some distance, producing 20mt in 2003, or 35 per cent of the apples produced in the world last year. While much of the world either stagnated or registered small increases, Chinese production officially rose by an astonishing 400 per cent between 1990 and last year. However, the accuracy of data collection has improved in the last five of those years, when the expansion only registered at three per cent. The increase in Chinese production can be explained by a greater harvesting area (which stood at 2.1m ha in 2003) and vastly improved yields (up 259.69 per cent to 9,525kg/ha between 1990 and 2003).

All other regional figures pale by comparison therefore, but the EU25 now produce around twice the volume of both the southern hemisphere nations and US growers. The EU represents 22 per cent of the global figure, while the US and the southern hemisphere nations weigh in with 11 per cent each.