Italy’s Severe Drought Damages Olive Trees Ahead of Harvest

A relent­less drought cou­pled with extended heat­waves is severely impact­ing Italy’s olive groves a cou­ple of months before the early har­vest.

The south­ern regions, respon­si­ble for most Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion, bear the brunt of these harsh weather con­di­tions.

Coldiretti Puglia, a promi­nent farm­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, has warned that the region’s olive oil pro­duc­tion may decline by more than 50 per­cent.

Numerous rain­fed olive trees in Puglia exhibit signs of water stress, with many olives des­ic­cat­ing on the branches.

In regions where irri­ga­tion is pos­si­ble, water remains scarce. Puglia’s water reser­voirs have decreased by 57 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son, lead­ing to sig­nif­i­cant losses across the agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

“Severe and pro­longed drought is com­pelling farm­ers to under­take emer­gency irri­ga­tion at exor­bi­tant costs, dri­ven by the high fuel prices needed to extract water from wells and trans­port it via tankers,” Coldiretti warned. ​“Artesian wells are col­laps­ing, while shal­lower wells are van­ish­ing, dry­ing up.”

Temperatures have been con­sis­tently soar­ing above sea­sonal aver­ages, prompt­ing the Italian Military Aviation Weather Forecast Services to repeat­edly warn about extra­or­di­nary heat­waves.

The behav­ior of the pro­tected star­ling species has shifted due to the heat, exac­er­bat­ing the chal­lenges faced by olive grow­ers.

Large flocks of these birds are now a per­sis­tent pres­ence in the coun­try­side, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to local agri­cul­ture. Coldiretti noted that each bird can con­sume up to 20 grams of olives daily.

To alle­vi­ate the pres­sure in olive-grow­ing areas already heav­ily impacted by the weather, the regional coun­cil has tem­porar­ily lifted bird pro­tec­tion mea­sures, per­mit­ting star­ling hunt­ing dur­ing the peak olive har­vest period when the dam­age is most severe.

Oprol, the asso­ci­a­tion of olive pro­duc­ers in Basilicata, cau­tioned that the crit­i­cal con­di­tion of olive groves observed since last year has esca­lated into a more intense emer­gency phase.

“We have already lost the entire olive pro­duc­tion for the cur­rent sea­son,” said Paolo Colonna, the association’s pres­i­dent. ​“Moreover, if these weather con­di­tions per­sist, next sea­son’s pro­duc­tion could also be at risk.”

The sit­u­a­tion in Sicily is equally dire. The sparse, light rain­fall in some areas over the past two weeks has not relieved the parched soil. The dry weather is caus­ing olive trees in sev­eral parts of the island to pre­ma­turely drop their olives, a nat­ural response to extreme stress.

The entire region’s agri­cul­ture is in a state of emer­gency, with water reserves plum­met­ing to his­toric lows.

Where fea­si­ble, the local gov­ern­ment strives to pro­vide some relief to farms while ensur­ing ade­quate water avail­abil­ity for the pop­u­la­tion. The Italian navy has deliv­ered water sup­plies to the island.

At the same time, wild­fires are ram­pant, pos­ing new risks to for­est areas and the pop­u­la­tion and com­pli­cat­ing drought relief efforts.

Coldiretti reported that fires have already rav­aged 5,800 hectares of Sicilian land. Olive, fruit and wine pro­duc­tion is expected to col­lapse, with dam­ages to local farm­ers poten­tially reach­ing €3 bil­lion.

Slightly less severe drought and tem­per­a­ture con­di­tions have also affected cen­tral regions, includ­ing Lazio and Umbria, home to many sig­nif­i­cant Italian olive oil com­pa­nies.

In Umbria, spring rain­fall and good flow­er­ing had ini­tially raised hopes for a suc­cess­ful sea­son despite this year being an ​‘off-year’ in the olive trees’ nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle.

However, strong winds, extremely high tem­per­a­tures and dry weather are chal­leng­ing local olive farm­ers. In Trevi, one of Umbria’s his­toric olive-pro­duc­ing areas, many olives show signs of dehy­dra­tion.

“The cur­rent drought is alarm­ing all olive pro­duc­ers in the region,” Paolo Morbidoni, pres­i­dent of the Umbrian Olive Oil Roads, told RAI news ser­vice. ​“At this moment, all grow­ers need to be cau­tious and act to mit­i­gate the impacts of the drought as much as pos­si­ble.”

“The sit­u­a­tion in our area remains man­age­able, though the heat is severely test­ing the resilience of the olive trees,” Luca Perotti, man­ag­ing direc­tor at the award-win­ning Tuscan pro­ducer Pometti, told Olive Oil Times.

“The plants can endure high tem­per­a­tures and lack of rain, but the fruits are suf­fer­ing. Despite being abun­dant this sea­son, they are turn­ing black,” he said. ​“This is pri­mar­ily due to con­sis­tently high tem­per­a­tures exceed­ing 33 ºC to 35 ºC.”

Pometti said he is mit­i­gat­ing the impacts of the drought by using kaolin clay on his olives to shield them from direct sun­light and the olive fruit fly.

“Typically, this prod­uct is used to pro­tect against the olive fruit fly, but we have dis­cov­ered it also shields the fruits from ​‘sun­burn,’” he said. ​“At present, we can’t com­plain about the field con­di­tions. The grass­ing and mulching from cut­ting the grass cer­tainly helps retain good soil mois­ture. The foliage is dense, and satel­lite images con­firm the pos­i­tive impact of our efforts.”

Conditions vary sig­nif­i­cantly in some cen­tral and north­ern regions, where dif­fer­ent weather pat­terns, milder tem­per­a­tures and exces­sive rain­fall have, in some cases, caused sub­stan­tial dam­age.

“Italy is a coun­try [at the moment] mete­o­ro­log­i­cally divided in two and an ongo­ing cli­mate cri­sis that is severely chal­leng­ing agri­cul­tural busi­nesses,” said Cristiano Fini, the national pres­i­dent of CIA-Agricoltori Italiani, a farm­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion.

In Veneto, where exces­sive rain­fall has posed chal­lenges for many farms, the cur­rent olive sea­son demands a skilled approach to tree man­age­ment.

“This year, we likely expe­ri­enced more rain­fall in north­ern Italy than ever before dur­ing the first six months. Consequently, the har­vest is pro­gress­ing very well,” Johannes Pan, mar­ket­ing man­ager at the award-win­ning Paneolio, told Olive Oil Times.

“The pos­i­tive feed­back from com­pe­ti­tion results demon­strates that our agri­cul­tural and pro­duc­tion approaches are effec­tive, even in vary­ing con­di­tions,” he said. ​“Over the past five years, we’ve faced every­thing from severe drought to exces­sive rain­fall.”

Italia Olivicola, the olive grow­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, pre­dicted that the ​‘off-year’ com­bined with extreme weather con­di­tions would reduce Italian olive oil pro­duc­tion by at least 23 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

European Union data indi­cate that Italy pro­duced 328,000 tons of olive oil in the 2023/24 crop year, sig­nif­i­cantly above the last five-year aver­age of 307,000 tons.

• Tempo Italia
• Agronotizie