Winter Isn't Coming: Climate Change Hits Greek Olive Crop

Polygyros, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Nov, 2023) Greek organic farmer Zaharoula Vassilaki looks with admiration at a huge olive tree on her property believed to be over two centuries old, still yielding despite a direct lightning hit years ago.

But climate change -- in this case, the absence of deep winter -- is proving too much for even this gnarled veteran to cope with.

"The climate has changed and the trees cannot cope with these big changes. We no longer have winter at all," she told AFP.

In mid-November, the temperature in the Halkidiki region of Polygyros, northern Greece, was still over 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).

"I consider climate change the main challenge this season," noted Nikos Anoixas, a board member of Doepel, the Greek national interprofessional organisation for table olives.

"At this time, temperatures should be 10 degrees Celsius... the year is already lost, and we fear next year will be similar. I don't even want to think what will happen if another such year follows," Anoixas said.

Vangelis Evangelinos has been growing edible olives on his family land in Halkidiki, northern Greece since he was a child.

At 62, he does not recall adverse weather conditions such as his area has endured this year -- or such a poor crop -- ever before.

"We've never had a year such as this," Evangelinos told AFP, two months after the Thessaly region, to the south, was devastated by massive floods.

"The rainfall is intense and brief," the opposite of what is needed to enrich the soil," he said.

The warm weather has affected some six million trees in the region, according to producers and experts.

"This year the phenomenon of 'fruitlessness' was very intense, but it is an issue that we have noticed mainly in the last five years," said Vassilaki, 48.

The European Union's olive production giants Italy and Spain have faced similar problems, pushing up prices.

Spain, the world's biggest producer of olive oil, suffered a very difficult year in 2022 and drought this year has compounded the problem.

In Italy, this year's olive harvest is down by an estimated 80 percent, according to producers.

The EU estimates global olive oil production will fall more than 26 percent in 2022-2023 compared to a year earlier, to just over 2.5 million tonnes.

In the EU itself, production is expected to drop 39 percent.