Increased planted areas and strong yields per hectare have caused Italy's corn output to increase to 10.5-11.0 million tonnes this year from 8.6 million tonnes in 2010, according to Coldiretti, a major Italian farmers' associations provided by their biggest group, on Friday (Sep 30).

Paolo Abballe, Coldiretti's grain specialist said that as far as areas are concerned, they can confirm the earlier estimate of more than one million hectares and as far as production is concerned, the estimate is between 10.5-11.0 million tonnes. He added that yields are very good this year and have a big increase in production.

Italy's corn output was about 8.6 million tonnes last year when 926,776 hectares were planted for corn, according to data from Italy's statistics agency ISTAT which is yet to release its estimates for 2011.