Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

Thanks!

One way to minimize the risk is to quarantine the batches in stub nurseries, and to be as zealous as one can regarding the sanitary passports.

In the past, Alentejo had many orchards that, thanks to the State policy of the dictatorial regime, were drastically replaced by large fields for cereal production. This resulted in what is now known as the pseudo-steppe (of a particular ecological interest), which is recognized today as the traditional landscape of Alentejo.

Many regret the sudden change into olive production, but few know how things were different a century ago.

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 when a Dutch journalist came to visit them and asked their opinion on the (supposedly) extra virgin that was sold in the Netherlands[0].

Taster: "This eh... oil is eh... very particular (...) It's Spanish!"

Journalist: "It's Spanish? I wouldn't know."

T: "Hah, now you know! This smell is very characteristic of Spanish olive oil."

J: "But this is not a defect, is it?"

T: "Yes."

J: "It's defective?"

T: "Yes."

J: "Because it's Spanish?"

Other taster: "For Italian people, yes."

A few minutes later[1], the boss comes with a more diplomatic answer:

"That the olive oil is Spanish is not a defect per sé, but within our guidelines we do consider it a defective product, because our own oil has a very specific smell and flavour. It's a fine product for Spain, but not for us."

EDIT: for the Europeans: the same program also revealed that Carbonell and Bertolli are the same Spanish company with a different label, with pretty much the same (mostly) Spanish olive oil. In case you care about that sort of thing. Personally I'm kind of curious how Greek olive oil fits in this picture.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=16m

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkO1dwx2_KA&t=19m26s

Its a sad state of today's food products. Honey in particular is often fraudulent containing syrups and sugars to add to volume while still being marketed as "Pure Honey". Worst of all, it is getting harder to detect the authenticity in modern labs as "honey factories" continue to develop new ways to throw the test results.

Olá!

I don't think it will matter, because many times the problem starts at the nursery. There are many nurseries, both inside the EU but also outside, like Morocco for example. When orchards are being installed across the country, it really could start anywhere. Weather does not seem to have any importance in the spreading of the disease.

What happened with the palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) doesn't necessarily apply here: X. fastidiosa infects a wide range of plants including ornamental plants, so it is really a matter of 'when', not 'if' or 'where'.[1]

As of February 2017, there were 132 confirmed cases in Balearic Islands that are now considered lost for the bacteria.[1] As far as I know, there are no confirmed cases in Morocco, which is why many farmers look there for safe nurseries.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylella_fastidiosa#Hosts [2]https://www.elmundo.es/baleares/2017/02/28/58b5aec5e2704e067... (Spanish)

That word does not mean what you think it does ;)

No, they're not. They can be grown in a monoculture (a large area occupied by the same plant), but they're not clones like bananas.

They are, however, slow. What you plant today doesn't give you olives any time soon.