From mango to avocado to papaya, tropical fruits fly that become Italian at zero km due to the increasingly intense heat of recent years.
The climate change underway, in fact, has meant that these crops find fertile ground in the South, adding to the many excellences of Made in Italy agri-food.
A reality confirmed to ANSA by Coldiretti which today estimates about a thousand hectares dedicated to these crops between Puglia, Sicily and Calabria, which have led to doubling production in less than three years.
Temperatures that are revolutionizing agriculture, bringing fruit to the fields that until a few years ago were only on imported shelves.
In the South, real fruit plantations originating from Asia and Latin America are set up;
apart from the 'usual suspects'
there are the black zapote that tastes of chocolate, the annona with a sour-sweet taste, the feijoa similar to plum, the Casimiroa that recalls peach, up to the lychee;
all for a total consumption of over 900 thousand tons nationwide.
Apulia stands out where Coldiretti reports 500 hectares dedicated to tropical fruit.
In Castellaneta in the province of Taranto, another 32 thousand avocado plants have been planted, while in Salento in the province of Lecce there are over 100 thousand and 8 thousand of mango and as many of lime.
A real regeneration of the landscape, devastated in recent years by the Xylella bacterium which starts again from tropical fruit trees.
In the province of Catania, bananas, mangoes and avocados are now commonplace, thanks to many farmers who have decided to recover abandoned land for the climate, first destined for the production of oranges and lemons.
A winning choice to respond to 61% of Italians who, according to Coldiretti, would buy more Italian tropicals than foreign ones,
with 71% willing to pay more for certainty of origin.
It is no coincidence that avocado (41%) leads the ranking of the most popular exotic fruits, followed by mango and papaya.
A business destined to change consumption in the coming years and therefore to guide the production choices of companies given the climate.