According to a recent report from Eurostad almost 1.3 million hectares of land in the European Union (EU) were covered with fruit trees in 2017.
A little over one-third of this total was accounted for by apple orchards (37%), and another one fifth by orange groves (20%). Pear orchards totalized 8% of the area planted with tree fruits in Europe. Despite the growth in the area of land planted with fruit trees in the past years, this area only accounts for around 1% of the land used for agriculture which summed, back in 2016, 173 million hectares.
Spain, Italy, and Poland are leading EU member countries when it comes to fruit plantation areas. Portugal comes in the 7th position with a total area of 38000 hectares of land planted with fruit trees. In the same report, we noticed that Portugal reaches the top 5 of leading countries when it comes to citrus trees and pear tree (please see the images below).
At TriPortugal we are happy to be part of these increasing and eye-catching numbers, let’s keep up the good work!