The initial estimates coming from the conference held today at Medfel in Perpignan, France, indicate an overall EU apricot crop of some 520 thousand tons, up 13% over a 2013 harvest that hovered around the lowest of the last ten years. If the projections hold, the crop will return to average levels for the 2010-2013 period.
The expected French crop of nearly 160 thousand tons would thus be up 22% over 2013 and 6 percentage points above the 2010-2013 average. Greece too expects to see a notable rise in its crop this year over the poor harvest it recorded in 2013. By contrast, Spain is expected to harvest a crop of some 88 thousand tons, or about 10% below last year’s.
Italy, the EU’s leading apricot producer, is projecting a crop of about 210 thousand tons. Here too the country is coming off a year in which it recorded a very poor crop volume. In effect, we get a better grasp of the situation if we look at the figures of the last four years, which show a slide of 8%.
Italy’s projections were reported by Elisa Macchi, the Director of Cso. She noted that «Apricot is a good cash crop for Italy. This is especially evident in the rise of orchard acreage and plantations of new cultivars we’ve been seeing over the last few years. After last year’s poor showing, it looks like we’ll have normal crop volumes this year, but no surplus to speak of».
