Chestnuts: Italy remains the most traditionalist

Ultimately, chestnut growing in Italy is a question of seeing the glass half full or half empty. From Eurocastanea 2023, the network of six chestnut-growing countries - Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria and Greece - which collaborate with each other and compare every year to take stock of the situation, conflicting impulses on the future of this crop emerge. Commenting on the annual conference which ended last week and which, being based in Leibnitz, Austria, also involved Slovenia and Italy, is Roberto Mazzei, one of the five Italian representatives within the European chestnut network, as well as director of the Chestnut and Chestnut District of Campania. The situation in Italy “At a production level – explains Mazzei – this year's forecasts see Italy in a sharp decline compared to 2022, while the other European countries, which had generally recorded lower production last year, estimate good quantities. Specifically, we should harvest on average less than 50% compared to ...