Drought in Europe: Towards an olive oil shortage in the coming months?

Published 2023년 4월 29일

Tridge summary

France's olive tree population is facing a severe water deficit, with rainfall deficits ranging from 25% to 75% since September, affecting regions such as Gard, Var, and the Pyrenees Orientales. This is part of a larger issue across the European Union, with Spain and Italy experiencing significant drops in production. The 2022-2023 harvest is projected to be catastrophic, leading to a 41.9% decrease in European olive oil stocks. The price of olive oil has already increased by an average of 30% since January 2022 due to increased costs of energy, fertilizers, and transport, with further increases expected as the water deficit threatens to reduce future harvests.

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Original content

"The olive tree may be traditionally subservient to dry lands, but the current situation is dramatic", comments bitterly Hélène Lasserre, director of the conservation and research center of France Olive, the interprofessional association of the French olive sector. In question, an exceptional rainfall deficit. For the specialist in the impact of global warming on this thousand-year-old culture, the lack of water in part of Gard, Var or even the Pyrenees Orientales - which are on alert - "is such that the issue is more to minimize the losses, but to save the trees”. In the South-East, the cumulative rainfall has been 25% to 50% down since last September, according to Météo France readings. It even reaches 50 to 75% in places. A situation that is all the more dramatic in that in France, 80% of olive groves are not irrigated. Because even if the cultivation of the Athenian tree is not the most water-intensive, it remains "necessary" explains Laurent Bélorgey, president of France ...

Source: Lefigaro