Climate Crisis Causes Record-High Prices for Olive Oil
The olive oil sector is suffering from the climate problem, and prices are rising. It is anticipated that the world’s output of olive oil, which is mostly produced in Spain and accounts for half of the world’s supply, would decrease by about 48% from the previous year. Droughts, heat waves, and wildfires brought on by climate change have significantly decreased olive harvests for the second year in a row, pushing up the price of olive oil to previously unheard-of heights. The US Department of Agriculture reports that in October, global benchmark retail prices hit a record high of $9,000 per tonne.
The oil market became a crisis in August when the Spanish government’s output estimate validated the worst suspicions. Droughts and dry weather have affected a number of Mediterranean nations, significantly reducing the availability of olives. Spain, the world’s largest oil producer, had a hard summer and destructive wildfires that negatively affected its harvest.
Europe, which depends largely on regional olive harvests, may now experience further shortages as a result of severe weather that has damaged olive crops for a second year. In order to keep up with the growing demand, the biggest oil producer in the world has turned to importing supplies from South America. The International Olive Council predicts that global olive oil output would drop to 2.4 million tonnes, which is less than the harvest of the previous year and much less than the roughly 3 million tons of demand worldwide. The main causes of this deficit are Spain’s severe drought and high temperatures—more than 40 degrees.
The situation has also been made worse by severe weather that has impacted other significant olive-growing areas, such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Morocco. Climate change is causing huge disruptions to conventional olive farming techniques and considerable output losses, making the olive oil industry—a vital part of the Mediterranean economy—face unprecedented problems.
