Bad news, olive and olive oil lovers.
Your favorite bottle of Mediterranean olive oil could start costing more because of unseasonable weather in and tiny insects.
High spring temperatures, a cool summer and abundant rain are taking a big bite out of the olive harvest in some key regions of Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. Those conditions have also helped the proliferation of the olive fly and olive moth, which are calamitous blights.
The shortfall could translate into higher shelf prices for some olive oils and is dealing another blow to southern Europe's bruised economies as they limp out of a protracted financial crisis.
"The law of supply and demand is a basic law of the market," said Joaquim Freire de Andrade, president of growers' association Olivum in Portugal's southern Alentejo region, the country's olive heartland. "It's a tough year."
Olive oil is big business in southern European Union countries. They are the source of more than 70 percent of the world's olive oil, bringing export revenue of almost 1.8 billion euros ($2.2 billion) last year. The United States imported just over $800 million of that.
For some European growers, this year's harvest is a bust.
Damaged olives hang in the grove belonging to Augusto Spagnoli, an oil producer from Nerola, 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from Rome. Italy’s 2014 olive harvest was declared by both producers and experts as the worst in history, due to adverse climatic conditions which helped the olive fly proliferate.
http://www.weather.com/news/olive-harvest-battered-bad-weather-bugs-expect-prices-rise-20141118
No comments:
Post a Comment