Olive oil and wine at risk as drought hits Spain

Fears of a worldwide shortage as growers warn of poor harvests due to heat and sparse rainfall

WORLDWIDE supplies of olives and wine are under threat from a drought ravaging Spain as farmers’ groups warn that the lack of rain could bring disaster for this year’s harvests.

Soaring temperatures and rainfall less than half the historic average have devastated Spain’s agricultural indus- try, with farmers reporting the worst year they have seen for decades.

In some regions, this year’s grain harvests – slashed by half nationwide from 2016 – have already been declared a “natural disaster”.

Now, agricultural organisations say vineyards and olive groves are falling prey to the drought.

“There are going to be a lot of people in difficulties,” a spokesperson for the Agrarian Association of Young Growers told El Pais. “Now it’s grain, but later it will be the olive grove, the vineyard, the almond.” In the Andalusian province of Jaén – the heartland of the country’s olive production – growers warn that, if the lack of rain persists, it will severely affect a harvest that has already suffered from a run of dry years.

Last year’s olive harvest, which runs from October to November, was significantly lower than the previous one.

Juan Luis Ávila, the provincial secretary of the Coordinator of Growers and Ranchers’ Associations (COAG), said that, even in the best case scenario, a repeat of that poor yield was “the maximum we can hope for”.

Spain is the world’s leading olive producer, providing up to 50 per cent of global supplies of olive oil and 35 per cent of table olives.

Last year’s meagre harvest, along with low yields in other Mediterranean countries, such as Greece and Spain, wiped 11 per cent off world production. As a result, olive oil prices have surged by almost a quarter this year.

Britain’s fondness for olives and olive oil has grown in recent years. It now ranks sixth in the world in consumption of the latter, according to the UN’S Food and Agriculture Organisation. More than 50 per cent of supplies are imported from Spain.

Winemakers are also praying for rain, hoping that a break in the parched weather could salvage a year that has so far seen production fall by 50 per cent in some regions.

“We are facing a complicated year, the prediction is that production will drop, but much depends on the second part of the year,” said José Joaquín Vizcaíno, COAG’S representative for the wine sector. He said quantities would undoubtedly be less and, without cooler August weather to allow grapes to mature, quality is also in peril.

Pablo Dominguez, a producer of the Tempranillo variety in the province of Zamora, said he had already lost up to 90 per cent of the grapes on parts of his land due to April frosts.

Now, with the drought, he is pessimistic about recovery. “We are already in July and it doesn’t look like this is going to get better,” he said.