This 2024 summer campaign should be almost normal for fruit and vegetables in Emilia-Romagna. Climatic events, phytosanitary adversities, droughts are always lurking, but at the moment the red alert light has not yet come on. However, the sector inherits a very complex situation from previous years. Frost, hailstorms, floods, diseases and various parasites have caused a drop in production in the 2020 and 2021 years. And 2023 also saw a decrease of about 50% in the quantities harvested. Consequently, the areas cultivated with fruit also show a constant decline with a disappearance of fruit tree crops, referring to the period 2012–2022, of over 11,000 hectares, equal to 17.5% (about 1,000 hectares uprooted per year on average). The species that have lost the most surface area are the pear tree with a decrease of 6,478 hectares, the peach tree with 5,244 hectares and the nectarine with 5,079, only partially replaced by apple, apricot and kiwi. Furthermore, companies complain about the poor availability of manpower for various cultivation operations: pruning, phytosanitary treatments and harvesting. A factor that determines a constant increase in production costs, to the point that many entrepreneurs maintain that “the problem is not selling, but producing and harvesting”. The hailstorms at the end of May in the Forlì and Cesena areas, the heart of Romagna fruit growing, have brought up again the issue of active and passive defense of orchards. Alberto Mazzoni, vice president of Confagricoltura Forlì-Cesena and Rimini, says: “Extreme phenomena are increasingly violent and above all more frequent, hailstones have become projectiles. In the face of these episodes, even active defense systems go into crisis, we have seen anti-hail nets collapse due to the weight of the ice that had accumulated”. “It is also becoming increasingly difficult for farmers to insure themselves, companies tend to start insurance campaigns later and later, with penalizing criteria and very high costs, but there is also the problem of a decreasing public contribution – adds Mazzoni -. The system must therefore be reformed, because traditional passive defense, as we know it, is no longer adequate, while the new Agricat fund only concerns catastrophic events (frost/frost, flood, drought)”. The Region is taking action as best it can, announcing an extraordinary call for 30 million euros for the flooded areas, one for 15 million for the other areas and two anti-frost calls for a total of 13 million between European, cohesion and PNRR funds. Then, against the damage caused by climate change, plant diseases and extreme phenomena, other calls for over 70 million euros to defend quality production and business income: from fans to heating candles, from protective nets to anti-frost systems to increasingly specialized irrigation systems. Emilia-Romagna is one of the strong points of our fresh fruit and vegetable exports which continues to grow. In the first quarter of 2024, positive trend both in volume (+1.6%) and in value (+2.5%) compared to the same period last year. However, imports are also growing in double figures (+11.1% in quantity and +12.7% in value) with a trade balance that sees imports prevailing by 96,146 tons over exports and records a balance in value that goes from +354,434 to +245,969 million euros, a decrease of 30.6%. “The data prove it – comments Marco Salvi, president of Fruitimprese and number one of the Ferrara-based group of the same name – consumers reward new varieties that keep the promises of taste and constant quality, this is what we need to focus on. Exports are growing, especially in value, for those products such as apples and kiwis that have been able to renew production and offer a good and convenient product to consume”. “As for the next few months – Salvi continues – we are very worried about the consequences of the international crises, in particular the one in the Middle East with the reduction of traffic in the Suez Canal, which unfortunately lately seems to have disappeared from the radar of politics and information, but which risks compromising the export campaign of autumn products, with serious repercussions for our economy”.
