22/02/2019 (Agence Europe) – Two thirds of the EU's fruit plantation area is concentrated in Spain, Italy and Poland, according to data provided by Eurostat on Thursday 21 February. In 2017, Spain was the leading EU Member State in terms of the production area of fruit (422,800 ha or 33% of the EU total), followed by Italy (279,300 ha or 22%) and Poland (167,300 ha or 13%). In 2017, fruit trees covered almost 1.3 million hectares (ha) of land in the EU. A little over one third of this total was accounted for by apple orchards (473,500 ha, or 37%) and another one fifth by orange groves (255,500 ha or 20%). (LC)