Spain: Drought in the olive oil capital of the world

EL MOLAR, Spain — The branch, plucked from one of the thousands of trees in a dense olive grove in this town, bears brown leaves and a few tiny, dry shoots that cluster near the end. For Agustín Bautista, the branch tells a story and the story is about a harvest that is lost. Normally, those shoots are green and healthy and produce more than 49,000 liters of olive oil in a season. That's more than enough for Bautista, 42, with a powerful voice and long red hair, to support his wife and two young children. From October, when the olives are shaken from the trees and collected by nets on the ground, you'll be lucky if you produce a fifth of that amount. "I'm going to lose money," he assured, with the resigned tone of a man who is in the acceptance phase of pain. As he looked at the arid hectares of his property, he summed up the reality facing Spanish olive farmers: “Without water, there is no future.” The drought has devastated dozens of crops across Europe: corn in Romania, rice in ...