Brussels – Nearly 60 million tons of fruits and vegetables were harvested, with a value of €68 billion. Triumphing, in terms of quantity, are tomatoes and apples, with two member countries vying for first place in the rankings for most crops: Spain and Italy. This is the photography concerning the health of European fruit and vegetable production in 2022 taken by Eurostat.
On two million hectares of land in the 27 member countries, the three most cultivated fresh vegetables were tomatoes (15.4 million tons), onions (6.2 million tons) and carrots (4.4). As for fruits, first place for pome fruits (12.6 million tons of apples and 2.1 of pears), followed by citrus fruits (10.5 million tons) and 6.3 million tons of dupraceae (peaches, apricots, cherries, plums).
Two-fifths of the EU’s entire fruit production area is located in Spain. More than 1.5 million hectares of land, of which nearly 60 per cent is devoted to nuts, particularly almonds, of which Madrid is indeed the second largest producer in the world after the United States, and 20 per cent to citrus fruits. Well behind Italy, in second place, which hosts 17 per cent of the fruit production area in its territory, followed by Poland and Portugal, at 9 and 8 per cent respectively.
Spain and Italy exchange positions in terms of areas planted with fresh vegetables: Rome leads the EU with 19.7 per cent of the total, Madrid second with 19 per cent. In third place is France, with 14.1 per cent. The Italian figure is driven by the tomato harvest, which accounts for 40 per cent of all tomatoes produced in the EU. In the second place, also in the case of tomatoes, is Spain, with 24 per cent.
Mediterranean Europe not only holds the lead in the production of bulb and root vegetables: in 2022, the Netherlands was the leading producer of onions, accounting for nearly a quarter of the onions harvested in the EU, while Germany was for carrots (18 per cent of the EU total). There is also room for an exception that confirms the rule: the largest producer of apples in the EU was Poland, with 34 per cent of the total, almost twice as much as Italy (18 per cent) in second place. Italy remains a leader in peach production (34 per cent of EU production) and pears (25 per cent).
The EU continues to be a net importer of fruits and vegetables
All this amounted to a total value of €68 billion, divided between the €40.7 billion of vegetables and the 27.3 of fruits. Even at the economic level, Spain and Italy are the leading countries by a wide margin: Spain with 22.5 per cent of the value of fresh fruits and vegetables, and Italy with 21.3 per cent. In third place is France, with 10.2 per cent. Tomatoes and apples still rule: tomato production is valued at €7.8 billion, and apple production €4.7 billion.
In addition to the EU’s fruit and vegetable stock, the 27 imported €20.6 billion worth of fruits and vegetables in 2022 while exporting 9.4 billion. Also in 2022, the EU was confirmed as a net importer of fruits and vegetables, with a trade deficit of €11.2 billion.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
