The during the Prognosfruit congress predicted apple crop of 11,411,000 tonnes will not be realised. From various sides reports are reaching us that the production is lower than the estimate announced during the Prognosfruit congress in early August. As yet, there are no complete and concrete figures, but on the basis of the various reports, production will turn out to be lower by at least 500,000 tonnes.
According to a report by the German AMI, in many regions, the fruit size is smaller than expected due to the extreme heat. This mainly concerns the Southern European countries, but also plays a part in Northwest Europe. For instance, the German bureau for statistics Destatis, at the end of August, estimated the volume of the German apple crop at 900,000 tonnes, or 52,000 tonnes smaller than the volume announced during Prognosfruit. Production of the German Streuobst trees also turns out to be smaller than forecast.
From Poland too – accounting for 35% of the European apple production – signals are reaching us that the 3,995,000 tonnes mentioned during the Prognosfruit congress, will not be realised. According to AMI, the processing industry in Poland expects a crop size of 3.5 million tonnes; 500,000 tonnes less than what was announced during Prognosfruit.
Similar reports are reaching us from EU neighbouring countries. For instance, experts in Moldova expect an apple crop that is at least 50 to 70,000 tonnes smaller than the 548,000 tonnes announced during Prognosfruit.
Estimate adverse to producers
The wry thing about this is, that a group of fruit growers in South Tyrol, associated in the working group for the future of fruit growing, already before the Prognosfruit congress, warned against overestimating European apple production. In an open letter to the WAPA, the organisation that compiles and publishes the European apple estimates and is at the same time the organiser of the Prognosfruit congress, they already pleaded for putting a stop to the EU crop estimates, because these were not objective and are adverse to the producer.