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Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

nature.com

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Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#121

Post by hinkley »

riffraff wrote: post #109
hinkley wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French use regionalism with wine to control this without sounding... well let’s just say it: racist. I’m surprised there aren’t appellations for Italian olive oil, if they care so much about it being domestic.

italy consumes 3 times as much oil as it produces. But all bottles have a label that says where the oil or olives come from, it's just that nobody takes time to read it. And of course, people want 1L of EVOO for 8 euros, not 20, so the big distribution carries mostly those.

Wow, I had no idea about the mismatch between supply and demand.

On a French wine label, the appellation is often the second biggest text on the label. IIRC on olive oil 'extra virgin' is the second biggest.

Maybe the appellation should assume EVOO and work from there?

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#122

Post by nicodds »

Hello people! A voice from the field here.

As in most of the cases in Italy, we can say that the approach is: "the situation is hopeless, but not serious". Apart from the joke, it is a sad period and the Xylella case is just part of a bigger whole. But let's stay focused.

Actually, the problem has a long history and Nature wrote about it several times over the last 5 years.

I'm not an expert, nor a practitioner of the field. Nevertheless, it seems a growing evidence show that the bacterium is responsible for the problem together with a state of abandon, spread over many areas of the region, uncultivated from several decades.

The local court started an investigation to understand how Xylella reached the Salento area. Due to a poor scientific approach and an uneffective communication, such investigations gave rise to very large protests among public opinion. These protests blocked de facto any political decision to stop the spreading of the bacterium: politicians are more interested in their consensus.

This lead to a paralysis status in which Xylella prospered and the infection spread over, towards southern areas of Brindisi province.

Meanwhile, the investigations did not find a clear responsible. There are two main voices in this side. The first says that Xylella infection was the result of an out of hand scientific experiment aimed at testing some plant protection products. The second says that Xylella comes from massive and uncontrolled import-export activities in a big plants trading facility. Both stories have a similar geographical origin, near the city of Gallipoli.

HTH, Nico

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#123

Post by sifoobar »

From my understanding there are two ways this happens. 1) We mess with plant genetics, which creates weak mono cultures. Bananas being the biggest offender I'm familiar with. And 2) We play God and release our lovely designer creatures into the environment to marvel at the unintended consequences.

This one hits me where it hurts though, I wouldn't get through a day without good olive oil.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#124

Post by Cyph0n »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #113
Cyph0n wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is when the mix-ins are from North Africa, e.g. from Morocco, which are considered of inferior quality Tunisian here. I'm curious: why is North African olive oil considered inferior?

I don't know. Probably traditional reasons. For example, French wine is considered superior, but I find Greek and Italian wines at least as good (although I haven't really tried all that many of any type). I don't have a good source for this, but the way I always knew it is that, when it comes to olive oil, Spanish is considered best, followed by Greek, followed by Italian, then everyone else's comes next. I am Greek…

As I assumed, it's purely subjective.

I would argue that almost no one can tell the difference between the highest quality olive oils from the major oil producing Mediterranean countries. So way I look at it is that Mediterranean olive oil > others.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#125

Post by jnurmine »

giardini wrote: post #71
docbrown wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to Italy, Europe as a whole is pretty picky when it comes to olive oil. As an anglo who was introduced to authentic olive oil imported from Greece.. there is a very serious distinct taste difference between cheap and legitimate olive oil.

docbrown says> "there is a very serious distinct taste difference between cheap and legitimate olive oil." Is there a taste/test that someone like me, who is a neophyte and definitely not an expert, could distinguish/use?

The first time I tried high quality olive oil was at at an Italian restaurant. The oil was delivered with a piece of freshly baked bread and a small container of salt flakes.

When I tasted it I thought it was unreal. It was that good.

I don't remember the restaurant or even where it was, but do remember the tasting experience!

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#126

Post by rocketred »

vanderZwan wrote: post #93
chicob wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like Hacker News, and I usually read my tech-related news here first. Farming is kind of the family business, and I love it. I am also a physicist by training, and thus my interest in technology in general. Agriculture is becoming increasingly technological, and everything from farming gadgets to John Deere tractors hacking has come up many times. There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agricultur…

> There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agriculture, so the interdisciplinarity never ends! You can't just casually mention this without further explanation! :D

fun little presentation about it: https://suli.pppl.gov/2018/thursdays/The%20Emerging%20Field%...

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#127

Post by docbrown »

jnurmine wrote: post #125
giardini wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

docbrown says> "there is a very serious distinct taste difference between cheap and legitimate olive oil." Is there a taste/test that someone like me, who is a neophyte and definitely not an expert, could distinguish/use?

The first time I tried high quality olive oil was at at an Italian restaurant. The oil was delivered with a piece of freshly baked bread and a small container of salt flakes. When I tasted it I thought it was unreal. It was that good. I don't remember the restaurant or even where it was, but do remember the tasting experience!

>The first time I tried high quality olive oil >I thought it was unreal

For those people who may be having trouble understanding the comparison, this reaction would be the same reaction as if we were tasting supermarket hummus and legitimately homemade hummus.

One is McDonalds dry; the other is Michelin star silk.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#128

Post by chicob »

vanderZwan wrote: post #93
chicob wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like Hacker News, and I usually read my tech-related news here first. Farming is kind of the family business, and I love it. I am also a physicist by training, and thus my interest in technology in general. Agriculture is becoming increasingly technological, and everything from farming gadgets to John Deere tractors hacking has come up many times. There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agricultur…

> There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agriculture, so the interdisciplinarity never ends! You can't just casually mention this without further explanation! :D

Here it is:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/environment/a-blas...

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#129

Post by anon2775 »

Also, Europe is desertifying like crazy due to climate change. Spanish farmers can't get the irrigation water they need, and have to go out of business or move in order to open greehouse farms in other actual desert areas. It's horrible because the planet is becoming so inhospitable that a nearly global desert is what we have to look forward to, if not Venus.

Re: Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

#130

Post by squozzer »

hinkley wrote: post #85
vanderZwan wrote: post #53

People outside of Italy are probably not aware of how seriously they take the topic of olive oil over there. The label "extra vergine" increases the price so much that there is a huge economic incentive for fraud. To combat this they have a taste police (literally) that checks that olive oil samples are not secretly mixes of fresh and old oil together. They are... quite opinionated, as you can see this exchange from…

The French use regionalism with wine to control this without sounding... well let’s just say it: racist. I’m surprised there aren’t appellations for Italian olive oil, if they care so much about it being domestic.

I think we could apply the terms "nationalist", "patriotic", or even "chauvinistic" terms in this context without too much penalty.
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