Alan Risolo distracts his thoughts from bad days as he looks at his bare olive trees some forty kilometers northeast of Rome: their branches were supposed to bend under the weight of the olives, but this year climate change has ruined his harvest.
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“Production has fallen by 80%,” admits the 43-year-old bearded farmer bitterly from the Sabina region, where centuries-old, even thousand-year-old olive trees have dominated the landscape as far as the eye can see since Roman times.
“For several years now, our territory has been suffering really badly from climate change,” he complains, referring in particular to “torrential rains” and “very long periods of heat that last throughout the fall.” To illustrate his point, he shows a branch with just a few shriveled olives.
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Not far away, in the “OP Lazio” oil mill, below the village of Palombara Sabina, workers are still busy turning the meager harvest into oil: the olives are washed, crushed and processed into a greenish paste, from which the precious extra virgin is created Oil with its intense scent is extracted.
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“In April and May, the months with the highest flowering, we had heavy rains that washed away the pollen, resulting in no fruit,” says Stefano Cifeca, agricultural engineer responsible for the quality of this mill equipped with the most modern equipment The producer service in the region is responsible.
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Sabina is not the only one affected: production has collapsed throughout the center and north of the peninsula. National production was saved by the region of Puglia (the heel of the Italian boot), which accounts for half of Italy’s oil, and Calabria (the tip of the boot).
According to Coldiretti, the main representative organization of the agricultural sector in Italy, national olive oil production will be 290,000 tons in 2023, compared to 315,000 tons in 2022.
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Unfortunately, this shortage is no exception, as Alan Risolo remembers: “In 2018, the frost paralyzed our production. We recovered little by little, but very slowly (…) And we had to deal with other problems: the rains, the heat and the climate change that has become more and more serious in our region.
“Uncertain future”
To address climate change, Unaprol, the national association that represents olive oil producers, is calling for “a national strategic plan” to save water, collect rainwater, create retention basins and recycle the water…
An opinion shared at local level by Stefano Cifeca: “Extreme phenomena due to climate change are mainly linked to the absence of rain for many months: we must therefore try to intercept autumn and winter rains by creating retention basins to cope with drought to provide irrigation.” periods.
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For Italy, the world’s second-largest producer far behind Spain, the stakes are high: according to Coldiretti, there are 150 million olive trees on the peninsula, representing an annual turnover of three billion euros and supporting 400,000 companies (farms, oil mills, processing companies, etc.). . ).
For Alan Risolo, who is also a veterinarian and thus has a second source of income, “agriculture presents us with a more uncertain future than ever before because we cannot accurately predict these climate changes.”
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Faced with this situation, farmers could, for example, “buy crops that are more resistant to cold or heat” or even “change the way of production,” he suggests with regret.
This last, radical solution is not yet supported by Stefano Cifeca. “Fortunately, the olive tree is a very rustic plant that can adapt to changes in climate and different areas,” says this fifty-year-old with an infectious smile, while olive trees occupy 80% of Sabina’s agricultural land.
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In addition to Italy, production also fell internationally, particularly in Spain (-34% compared to the average of the previous four years), leading to a 42% increase in prices, according to figures published by Coldiretti in September.
Italy is one of the world’s top three oil consumers, accounting for 15% of global consumption, just behind Spain and ahead of the United States.