Italian potatoes

Italy's potato sector is 'in collapse', with producers reportedly unable to cope with falling prices or stand up to competition from French and north African imports.

That's the story emerging in the Italian trade press this week, with leading industry news source Il Corriere Ortofrutticolo revealing that producers in Sicily are abandoning production on a mass scale, while elsewhere in the country suppliers are struggling to retain their place in the market.

'As of this year, we will no longer producer potatoes,' one producer in the Sicilian province of Ragusa told il Corriere. 'Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and even Israel are managing to turn out very low prices, which we can no longer reach.'

According to the report, 70 per cent of potato companies based on Sicily's Costa Ragusana have opted to discontinue their production.

In Veneto, meanwhile, producers have described the 2009 as a 'disastrous year' and say focusing more closely on premium markets offers the only potential way out.