"November registered a significant drop - around 30% - which is beyond the usual trend that characterizes this time of year," reports Vittorio Gona, agricultural business expert specializing in organic crops.
Vittorio Gona
Gona, who has been in charge of commercialization at the Albabio cooperative for years, is very critical of a chain that sees continued increases in the cost of production, but without higher remuneration for producers.
"The situation is heavy, as suppliers are increasing their prices while sales are not increasing as much. Actually, there are more and more special promotions. Day after day, it is becoming a struggle to stay within the prices and, most of all, within the costs."
"At the same time, there are more and more problems when it comes to phytosanitary defense. The organic segment is strictly monitored, and rightly so, but the number of 'weapons' available to us is limited and affects yields."
"As if this weren't enough, we have noticed how our produce is being promoted very little lately."
Gona hopes that, considering what happened this year, the Sicilian region will find a new way of promoting the produce, e.g. "using a new unified system under the Mipaaf to promote the Sicilian and Italian products on a European and international level. The presence of various public agencies in charge with promotion leads to disorganization, as could be seen at Macfrut 2021 and Fruit Attraction 2021. There is a lot of confusion also for Fruit Logistica 2022 and Biofach 2022. This way, we have granted further advantages to foreign competition."
An eye on prices
"The November slowdown is due mostly to an abundance of produce on the market, combined with a general mistrust caused by the skyrocketing number of Covid cases in Mid-European countries. The situation should stabilize over the next couple of weeks with the Christmas holidays. Currently, the average production prices are €2/kg for plum tomatoes, €1/kg for smooth round tomatoes, €1.40/kg for cherry tomatoes, €1.40 for dark green zucchini and €1.50 kg for eggplants."