Catastrophic harvest failure - no Stroud Green Olive Oil this year!

krappyrubsnif

<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">Bad news from the enchanted olive grove I'm afraid.</span></font><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">We arrived here (central Italy) yesterday to find </span></font><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">the whole of Abruzzo is suffering a really terrible - nay catastrophic - olive harvest. The worst in 20 years. Because of weather conditions (late frost, rain and lack of sun), there are almost no olives, what few have survived are spoiled by worms and rot. This contrasts strongly with a record-breaking 'bumper crop' last year. It's really, really serious - trees everywhere are bare, nothing to pick, the mills are closed and nobody is harvesting.   </span></font></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">So I'm afraid there will be no Stroud Green Olive Oil this year.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The good news is that the weather is sunny, warm, even hot (29C) and forecast to stay this way for some time.</span><br></div>

vetski

Shame about lack of oil - but a much bigger shame for the likely economic impact on the area... Is it just the fruit, Krappy, or have the trees themselves suffered?

krappyrubsnif

<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">Vetski, quite.  Though to be honest I don't think an olive crop failure here will have the catastrophic regional economic impact it might once have had.  </span></font><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">Most people in this region are not commercial farmers any more, they have other jobs (if they can find one), and they harvest their olives just for their own family use.   A family here might get through 200-300 litres of oil a year. There is no money from hand-picked olive oil, as far as I know very few sell any of their oil </span></font><span style="line-height: normal; font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: small;">and they're not dependent on it for an income.   Quite a few will have plenty of oil left over from last year to tide them over.</span></div><div><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">The impact will be on local oil mills and a very few commercial oil packers and exporters of artisanal down by the coast who provide seasonal employment.   Also fruit farmers - fruit (apricots, plums, cherries) has also failed, so smallholders and commercial farmers who take their produce to local markets will no doubt be affected.</span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;">I think the trees are OK.   It's hard to kill an olive tree.  You have to uproot it and put a stake through its heart.    </span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><span style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div>

miss annie

I wonder if that partly explains the lack of cherries in Ash's, Akdeniz and other greengrocers this year. I know a lot of supermarket cherries come from the US, which is having its own weather crisis, but perhaps smaller businesses buy from Europe? The cherry supply disappeared really early this year, they usually go on until the end of August at least.