USDA tips small increase in Italian orange production

Italy’s orange crop should be up 4% on last season but there’ll be a lack of big size fruit, says the USDA’s Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) in a new report. Fruit quality is expected to be good, despite unfavorable weather, though there’ll be more small size oranges in the 2013/14 (November-October) marketing year, it said.
 

Orange consumption is likely to remain flat in Italy, where most oranges are consumed fresh, principally the blood varieties (Tarocco, Moro, and Sanguinello), GAIN said. In 2012/13, Italy imported 223,566 tons of oranges (mainly from Spain) and exported 126,083 tons (mainly to Germany).
 

Little change is expected in Italy’s tangerine, lemon, and grapefruit crops. Its tangerine production is more than 80% seedless clementines (mainly Comune or Oroval and Monreal) and the rest mandarins (mainly Avana and Tardivo di Ciaculli varieties), with very slight reductions in production but satisfactory quality forecast for both.


GAIN said Italy’s lemon-producing area (concentrated in Sicily) is gradually shrinking due to reduced profitability and consumption will probably slip 6% on last season.