In Apulia, table grape cultivation has always been well-protected against bad weather. Plastic films are used to cover vineyards in order to protect as far as possible the sensitive grape bunches. However, human knowledge cannot cope with crazy weather.
An operator from the area reports to FreshPlaza:"If they had been just summer storms, there would not have been anything strange. But, we had a year's worth of rain pour down in just five days. No plastic film can cope with that. The plants were kept in "Bain Marie" for days... suffering all the predictable consequences".
The areas most affected were Rutigliano, Conversano, Turi, Casamassima, Noicattaro, where the produce, tarpaulin covers and plastic films were severely damaged. There were heavy rainfalls from 6th to 11th September 2016.
It seems that 60% of the product has been lost, but actually it is not possible to carry out an evaluation. "Firstly, we need to understand how the percentage is calculated, a trader explained. Otherwise we cannot make a calculation. Grapes do not deteriorate from one day to another, for this reason bunches that seem suitable for harvest today may present broken or rotten parts in a few days".
The only thing we can sadly calculate at the moment is the number of vineyards damaged due to bad weather. Overall data can be estimated in 4-5 weeks. "We will certainly finish the harvest earlier", an operator concludes.
Meanwhile, sectorial organisations, such as Coldiretti Bari, report that prices are increasing (up more than 40%) and producers are bearing the costs in order to save what they can.
However, good-quality grapes have not benefited from the smaller amounts on the market yet.
The regional Civil Protection issued a notice for bad weather conditions on Tuesday 20th September, ordinary alert (yellow) in most areas of Apulia and moderate alert (orange) in Gargano area.
Apulia is the top producer of table grapes in Italy, accounting for 74% of national production, and thanks to its huge contribution, Italy is the largest producer of table grapes in the world with 16% of world production.
In Italy 25,000 tons of table grapes (about 3.2% of domestic supply) are imported mainly from Europe (49%) and South and Central American countries (about 25%), especially Chile and Peru. The remaining part comes from Africa (13.5%) and Asia (4.6%).
