Agriculture

Fruit, exports recover but production still falls

In the first quarter of 2025, according to Istat Fruitimprese data, the fruit and vegetable balance closed the year with a surplus of more than 300 million euro, an improvement of 26.9% compared to a year ago

23 June 2025

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After more than three years, the balance of trade in fruit and vegetables has turned positive, consumption has regained strength, and some of the excellence of our agricultural sector is once again shining. But the path to relaunching the sector is still uphill because - in the words of Paolo Bruni (president of the Cso) - in ten years, with the same number of hectares, 1.3 million tonnes of production have been lost: which shows how profitability is undermined by climate change and plant diseases. "If we were rational,' the president of Italia Ortofrutta, Andrea Badursi, recently said, 'we would no longer have to produce fruit and vegetables: we invest and produce without knowing what the result will be.

In the first quarter of 2025 - Istat-Fruitimprese data - the national fruit and vegetable balance closed the accounts in the black by more than 300 million euro, an improvement of 26.9% compared to a year ago, with a surplus also in volumes of more than 10 thousand tonnes of difference between exports and imports.

Thanks to a policy of relaunching our exports," says Fruitimprese, "in particular fresh fruit, which recorded +21.7% in quantity and +23.8% in value. Apples, in particular, grew by 20.34% in volume and 17.95% in value, compared to the first quarter of 2024. Kiwis (yellow, in particular) also did well, up 12.55% in quantity and +27.03% in value. After months of stagnation, dried fruit also resumed, marked by excellent quotations on international markets, since with only 1.6% more sales across borders, it gained +9.7%.

The results of the first quarter become all the more relevant if one considers the particularly unstable geopolitical framework and the context of drastically reduced trade flows in which they matured. Now that yet another obstacle is appearing on the horizon, Fruitimprese President Marco Salvi urges the fruit and vegetable sector to ride President Trump's protectionist policies, focusing on markets that have decided to react. "We have been negotiating for years to export apples to Mexico," he says, "and now is the time to speed up, as our French competitors have done recently; or like the Spanish cherry exporters, who now have access to the Chinese market.

On the import side, the figures are less performing: volumes are down (-3.8% compared to the same period in 2024), values are up significantly (+9.2%). Imports of tropical fruit held up and citrus fruit imports rose slightly (+1.9% compared to Q1 2024), due to a domestic campaign that was not particularly prolific.

At home, domestic consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables is also picking up. In the first quarter of 2025 - according to data released by Cso - the volumes purchased grew by 2% compared to the first quarter of 2024, reaching approximately 1.29 million tonnes. Even more pronounced is the growth in the value generated by purchases, reaching EUR 3.15 billion, an increase of 5%, supported by a 3% increase in the average price. "The increase in spending is also linked to a higher incidence of value-added products, such as packaged and organic," comments Elisa Macchi, director of Cso Italy.

What to expect for summer fruit? After an opening of the season with thecherries case, the focus is now on the stone fruits emblematic of summer: peaches and nectarines. Italy, the second EU producer after Spain, closed the 2024 season with 973 thousand tonnes (+11% compared to 2023). A reduction of around 8% is expected for 2025. The situation is more worrying for apricots, which could halve in the North. In the face of these production collapses, it is clear that the real issue these days is to continue producing.

The gaze is also turned to Brussels, where the new regulation on pesticides is being examined. "The drastic reduction of plant protection products, which was indicated by the European Green Deal, has put the entire production system in dire straits," says Paolo Bruni. The European Union has left producers with no means of defence and no effective alternatives against climate change and plant diseases: from the approximately one thousand active ingredients that were available to agriculture, in just a few years we have gone down to less than three hundred. The consequences are there for all to see'.