For the tomato, the threat now comes from California

Years of raising the shields against the threat of invasion from Chinese tomato preserves. Only to discover that today the real danger comes from the USA. The accounts are soon done: this year's tomato harvest in our country will close with an expected drop of between 15 and 20 per cent, in Europe even Spain and Portugal are reducing their forecasts, while in California, which is already the world's second largest producer of red gold after China, yields are expected to increase by 10 per cent. The icing on the cake? President Trump's moves on the tariffs table, which has already brought home zero tariffs for the entry into Europe of certain American tomato products.

For the operators of a sector worth 5.5 billion a year, the scenario is certainly not reassuring. The most worried today are the farmers: 'At the beginning of the year we had started out with great confidence,' says Giuseppe Romanini, president of the North Basin Interprofessional Organisation, which negotiates agreements and prices for all the farmers in the northern basin, 'transplanting was proceeding on schedule and the areas planted were larger than last year, 45 thousand hectares against 40 thousand. Then the campaign took a completely different turn, and by 31 August we had a harvest of only 1.919 million tonnes of tomatoes: compared to projections, we are 17% less delivered. Northern Italy, which ensures more than half of the national tomato crop, has more or less reached the halfway point of the harvesting operations: 'If these are the proportions,' Romanini says worriedly, 'at the end of the campaign the drop may even exceed 20%. On the other side of the world, on the other hand, California is increasing yields by 10%: 'Italy,' says Romanini, 'is the world's leading exporter in terms of value, but not in terms of quantity: at this point, an arrival of Californian tomatoes in Europe can no longer be ruled out.

The Romagna-based cooperative Apo Conerpo, which harvests 5 million quintals of tomatoes every year, around 10% of the national production, confirms the estimates on the drop in yields: "Three quarters of the way through the harvest," says its president, Davide Vernocchi, "yields are 15-20% lower for conventional tomatoes, but in the case of organic tomatoes we are witnessing a collapse of over 30%. We spend 9-10 thousand euro per hectare to grow them, if production does not reach at least 900 quintals per hectare, revenues do not even cover costs'.

The sector, says Vernocchi, has structural problems: 'This is the third year that the planned yields do not correspond to the actual ones and the cause is climate change: three years ago the flood, last year the rains during the harvest, this year the summer heat bubbles. Asking the processing industry for more money than the price agreed at the beginning of the year? 'The industry can't give us more because the big distributors don't want to give them more,' says Vernocchi. 'The distributors don't want to recognise that there is a problem with the production context and the supply chain.

The processing companies, in short, are caught between two fires. "Most of the contracts with the large-scale retail trade were signed before the start of the campaign," confirms Giovanni De Angelis, managing director of Anicav, the association that brings together Italian tomato industrialists. Lower crop yields are also a problem for canning producers: "Even in the southern basin," he continues, "there are difficulties, linked to the irrigation system, particularly in the Foggia area. At the moment, the industry receives slowed-down supplies, which prevent the plants from achieving full production efficiency and the economies of scale that come with it'.