Italy: Growing quantities of hazelnuts, but the economic crisis and drought weigh on

After a 2021-2022 campaign to forget, in which production, due to frosts, reached one of the worst levels in recent years, now the quantities of hazelnuts collected show a marked increase for most of the Italian regions. This is what emerged from the EU-Turkey annual meeting on hazelnuts in which Confagricoltura and CIA actively participated, illustrating the progress of the national sector. The forecasts for 2022-2023 bode well, with a production that could reach about 87 thousand tons, a figure still below the national average. The current campaign is also heavily conditioned by the anomalous climatic trend, characterized by prolonged drought and high temperatures. "However, there are problems - Gianluca Griseri, representative of Confagricoltura at the Mipaaf core table, highlighted in the speech - from the continuous increase in production costs to parasitic attacks, to the continuous reduction of molecules available for phytosanitary defense, up to the companies are very ...