Apulia is Italy’s leading producer of durum wheat, with 360 thousand hectares cultivated and 10 thousand tons on an annual basis. However, these figures have declined significantly in the last three years: according to Istat data, there were only 344,700 hectares invested for a production of 6 million 877,000 quintals and a yield of 19.95 quintals per hectare.
These are very low figures for the region, still far from a multi-year average yield of 30 quintals/ hectare. Due to drought and production costs taking off, the wheat harvest also collapsed in 2022, down 26% from the previous year, Coldiretti Puglia claims based on Istat data.
ITALIAN PASTA STILL ON THE EDGE
Despite the critical situation we are living in the whole world, in recent years sales of pasta made with 100% Italian wheat have grown at a rate almost 2.5 times that of the average dry pasta. As a result one out of every 5 packages of pasta sold in the supermarket uses durum wheat grown in Italy, with Puglia leading the way in the production. During the past year, in fact, export sales increased by 44%.