Polish apple growing is in a slump, and Europe will have to look elsewhere to take up the slack, accroding to a new report.

Agrooglyad’s Vegetables and Fruits Journal states that apple production may decrease 35-40 percent, down to 1.3-1.5 million tonnes in 2007 in Poland. Poland is Europe’s largest apple grower, the study asserts.

Taking into account the forecasted decrease of the volumes of apples processed into apple juice, puree and apple concentrate, and also the growth of apple import, Polish producers will probably be able to export some shipments of apples, it argues. Nevertheless, the prices for Polish apples are likely to be much higher than usually, because Poland supplied considerable volumes to the markets of the European Union, Russia and Ukraine in the previous years.

A significant increase of export apple shipments in the lower price segment is expected to take place on Ukrainian and Russian markets due to the produce supplied from Moldova, Georgia, Serbia and Macedonia.

In March-June 2008 significantly larger volumes of apples may come from the countries of the Southern hemisphere: Chili, Brazil, Argentina. Russian importers may also increase the purchase of the apples of US origin.

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