The province of Lleida lost 2000 hectares of fruit trees in the last 5 years.

In the last 5 years, the productive area of ​​the province of Lleida, Spain, was cut by almost 2000 hectares of fruit trees and totaled 30.301 in 2020, informs the Ministry of Agriculture of Spain.

This period coincided with the Russian veto on European fruit which resulted in fatal prices in future campaigns, and certain reconversion in the fruit growing in the region.

Last year, the decrease of cultivated area of ​​fruit trees in the demarcation has been around 1,500 hectares, and in the case of stone fruit, more than 1,100.

Apple. The Lleida region had 6,236 hectares cultivated with apple trees in 2015, while the productive area was cut down to 5,800 in 2020. This means a loss of 436 hectares. So, between 2019 and 2020, the loss totaled 179 hectares.

Pears. Regarding pear trees, the province went from 9,369 to 8,552 hectares, which means a decrease of 817 hectares. A considerable part corresponds to Blanquilla variety, which in recent years continued to decline in favor of the Conference. Last year, the decline in the surface of this fruit totaled 152 hectares.

A few months later after the entry into force of the Russian veto (in 2015), the region had 8,849 hectares of peach trees and 7,842 hectares of nectarines. 5 years later, the figures have dropped to 8,496 in case of peach trees, and 7,453 hectares in case of nectarines, which means a reduction of 353 and 389 hectares, respectively.

Worth to mention that during that time Lleida was successfully continuing to grow stone fruit and many plots entered production or reached their full potential years later.

Between 2019 and 2020, the area for peach trees was reduced by 736 hectares (from 9,232 to 8,496). In case of nectarines, it was cut from 7,875 hectares in 2019 to 7,453 a year later, which means a decrease of 422.

source: segre

photo: agroinformacion