Avocados, mangoes, bananas, guavas and passion fruits… welcome to Sicily! Due to global warming, everything grows at the foot of Mount Etna, including exotic fruits.
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The surroundings are more reminiscent of the tropics than of Europe: the fields of mango and avocado trees, separated by rows of palm trees, stretch as far as the eye can see between the majestic silhouette of the volcano and the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
“In the last ten years a real sector has emerged (…) and it gives us great satisfaction, for example the possibility of working 10 or 11 out of 12 months,” says Andrea Passanisi, president of the Coldiretti farmers’ association in Catania, who second largest city in Sicily.
During a trip to Brazil in the 2000s, the enterprising 39-year-old Sicilian came up with the idea of growing exotic fruits back home in Sicily, thanks to the similarity of the two climate zones.
The Catania native, who had just completed his law degree, rolled up his sleeves after returning from his trip and planted his first avocado trees.
Fertile terrain thanks to the richness of volcanic soils, hot and humid microclimate, low temperature fluctuations between day and night: the conditions are optimal.
“Made in Etna”
Today the bet is won: no fewer than 43 farmers and hundreds of hectares are dedicated to growing tropical fruits. A direct-to-consumer website (www.siciliaavocado.it) has also been created and “Made in Etna” fruits are available throughout Italy but also in Europe.
In this still very hot month of September, the mango harvest is in full swing. Then it’s the turn of avocados and guavas, including passion fruit and bananas.
Prosperity linked to the worrying rise in temperatures in Italy. The last four years have been the hottest on the peninsula in 200 years. And 2023 promises to be even hotter, with an average temperature 0.67 degrees above the historical average for the first seven months of the year, according to the National Research Council (CNR).
In her mango field, Carla Cassaniti is busy picking the fruit.
The lively agronomist originally comes from Fiumefreddo di Sicilia at the foot of Mount Etna and worked in Milan in northern Italy. Ten years ago she left everything to return to her homeland, to a landscape more reminiscent of Brazil or India than Europe. “As they are fruits native to tropical areas, they need water at the beginning of cultivation, but once the trees have grown, they are drought resistant,” she explains.
Orange vs Mango
Ten years later, the young woman has no regrets, and her mango trees are now robust and full of fruit. She decides to see climate change “in Sicily as an opportunity to give new crops such as mango, passion fruit, papaya and avocado the opportunity to find their place here”.
The brunette with the wide smile, who also deals with organic certification in the Catania region, also sees the impact of her new plants on the environment positively: “By consuming a local product we leave a smaller carbon footprint, so less CO2 if.” We take into account the entire transport, the hours of travel that a banana would need, for example, to arrive at the Italian supermarkets from Brazil.
From an economic perspective, growing tropical fruits is not without risks.
Their price is higher than that of oranges or lemons, but the yield per hectare is lower. And Sicilian farmers know that the vagaries of the weather could force them to adapt again.
“Now the cold no longer comes in December, but in January or February. In January and February, flowering begins for tropical plants, the plant begins to awaken and an excessive cold snap becomes a problem, we risk affecting production,” warns Andrea Passanisi.
The same goes for excessive heat stroke, which exotic fruits hardly appreciate. In 2021, the mercury temperature in Sicily approached 49 degrees, a heat record never recorded in Europe.
“Citrus fruits are much more resistant to both heat and cold,” explains Andrea Passanisi.