The ongoing crop 2022/23 for was initially estimated by WAPA at a volume very similar to the preceding crop. Since the month of August 2022, however, several Member States registered additional drought and heatwave events that will result on smaller fruit sizes and, therefore, lower volumes.
In the case of Poland, the MS with largest volume, the need for adapting production to what is marketable, this is structural adjustments, has been confirmed once more. There are several provisional sources of information about the size of this crop; they point to a possible final estimate could be smaller than anticipated due mainly to labor shortages among other factors.
The volume of stocks on 1 December 2022 for the Member States that are the 10 most important producers was 4 419 513 tonnes, 9% below the level of the preceding crop.
OF course, the sector faces temporarily several challenges: 1) Rising input costs (especially energy and other farm inputs); 2) High costs on transportation; 3) Labor shortages (especially for harvesting).
But these challenges are also accompanied by opportunities: 1) Moderate size of the part of the crop going to fresh consumption; 2) Measures being taken in order to allow for more reasonable energy prices for storing fresh apples and for facilitating apple processing; 3) Great export opportunities in the processing size in a context of a small crop in China (more than 50% of the world’s production and consumption, a crop 9 million tonnes below normal levels) and very favorable exchange rates on both Dollar and Euro terms for exporting on the Polish currency;
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Source: agriculture.ec.europa.eu