New Study Ranks Areas in Greece Most Suitable for Olive Cultivation

Summary

A research team from the Agricultural University of Athens has released Greece’s first nation­wide study on the suit­abil­ity of dif­fer­ent regions for olive cul­ti­va­tion, find­ing that approx­i­mately 60 per­cent of the coun­try’s land area is suit­able for grow­ing olive trees. The study, pub­lished in the MDPI Agronomy Journal, used cli­matic and geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal data to map regions best suited for olive cul­ti­va­tion, with some Aegean islands and north­ern Greece iden­ti­fied as highly suit­able loca­tions for olive grow­ing.

A research team from the Agricultural University of Athens has released the country’s first nation­wide study assess­ing the cli­matic suit­abil­ity of Greece’s main­land and islands for olive cul­ti­va­tion.

The study, pub­lished in the MDPI Agronomy Journal, com­bined cli­matic and basic geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal data to map which regions are best suited for grow­ing olive trees.

The research find­ings indi­cate that approx­i­mately 60 per­cent of Greece’s total land area is suit­able for olive cul­ti­va­tion, with more regions capa­ble of sup­port­ing olive trees than are cur­rently under cul­ti­va­tion.

“The model we have cre­ated iden­ti­fies areas in Greece that are most appro­pri­ate for the devel­op­ment of olive cul­ti­va­tion in the coun­try,” said Ioannis Charalampopoulos, a bio­cli­ma­tol­o­gist at the Department of Crop Science at the Agricultural University of Athens who led the research.

The researchers used 11 cli­matic and geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal para­me­ters to gen­er­ate a suit­abil­ity map for olive cul­ti­va­tion across Greece, assign­ing scores from zero to ten, with higher val­ues indi­cat­ing more favor­able con­di­tions.

“The geo­mor­pho­log­i­cal para­me­ters we used, such as alti­tude and ter­rain slope, do not change over time,” Charalampopoulos said. ​“For the cli­matic para­me­ters, we relied on exist­ing cli­mate con­di­tions.”

“For exam­ple, we know the opti­mal rain­fall required for olive trees dur­ing spe­cific peri­ods,” he explained. ​“Regions meet­ing that thresh­old received a top score, while areas with less rain­fall were rated lower.”

Using the same method­ol­ogy, the researchers gen­er­ated val­ues for all para­me­ters nation­wide.

“We used all the key fac­tors related to olive cul­ti­va­tion, with the excep­tion of soil qual­ity, soil man­age­ment prac­tices and irri­ga­tion capac­ity,” Charalampopoulos noted.

The team also exam­ined whether olive trees in dif­fer­ent regions receive suf­fi­cient win­ter chill hours and the risk of spring frost, which can sig­nif­i­cantly dis­rupt flow­er­ing.

Previous research has high­lighted the impor­tance of win­ter chill require­ments for healthy olive pro­duc­tion in Greece.

All para­me­ters were reclas­si­fied and com­bined into a final suit­abil­ity score raster rang­ing from 0 to 10.

According to the final map, small pock­ets of land in east­ern Crete and on sev­eral Aegean islands, includ­ing Naxos and Amorgos, emerged as the most suit­able loca­tions for olive cul­ti­va­tion, receiv­ing a per­fect score of ten.

Other regions in south­ern and north­east­ern Greece were also iden­ti­fied as highly suit­able for olive grow­ing.

“Beyond tra­di­tional olive-grow­ing areas such as large parts of the Peloponnese, which scored between eight and nine, our research showed that the north­ern region of Kavala is also highly suit­able and received a score of nine,” Charalampopoulos said.

“Many farm­ers in and around this region have suc­cess­fully tran­si­tioned to olive cul­ti­va­tion, with their olive oils rec­og­nized inter­na­tion­ally for qual­ity,” he added.

The researchers are now work­ing to enhance the suit­abil­ity map by incor­po­rat­ing pro­jec­tions of cli­mate change.

Scientists have found that the east­ern Mediterranean is warm­ing faster than the global aver­age, a trend already affect­ing olive grow­ers in Greece, accord­ing to regional cli­mate assess­ments.

Recent sea­sons have shown how warmer win­ters can dis­rupt fruit set, as seen in cases where mild win­ter con­di­tions reduced yields in north­ern Greece.

“We now know, for instance, that cli­mate change is expected to sig­nif­i­cantly impact cul­ti­va­tion in the north­ern Greek region of Evros,” Charalampopoulos said.

“With reduced water avail­abil­ity for irri­ga­tion, we can pro­vide farm­ers with infor­ma­tion to help them decide whether switch­ing from tobacco to less water-demand­ing crops, such as olives or vine­yards, would be more sus­tain­able,” he added.

By incor­po­rat­ing pro­jected tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions into the model, the researchers aim to help farm­ers assess whether olives will be a more viable long-term option than their cur­rent crops.

The suit­abil­ity map could also prove use­ful to the agri­cul­tural insur­ance sec­tor.

“An olive farmer in north­west­ern Greece would face higher insur­ance costs than one in the Peloponnese due to the increased risk asso­ci­ated with cul­ti­va­tion in that region,” Charalampopoulos explained.

The final phase of the research will add data on soil qual­ity, irri­ga­tion avail­abil­ity and the expected risk of fruit fly infes­ta­tions.

“We are also com­plet­ing a cli­matic risk analy­sis based on extreme weather events such as hail­storms and heat­waves,” Charalampopoulos said.

“Our goal is to cre­ate a sim­ple, mod­u­lar tool that incor­po­rates all fac­tors rel­e­vant to olive cul­ti­va­tion in Greece and allows future sce­nar­ios to be tested,” he added.

“A farmer will be able to esti­mate the level of finan­cial invest­ment required to estab­lish an olive farm based on a region’s suit­abil­ity score.”

Charalampopoulos said the model could also help pol­i­cy­mak­ers make informed deci­sions about the orga­ni­za­tion of Greece’s agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

“Greece can­not have an effec­tive farm­ing strat­egy with­out sci­en­tific data,” he said.

“Our suit­abil­ity map could be used by the state to iden­tify regions best suited for olive cul­ti­va­tion in the com­ing decades and incen­tivize farm­ers to make informed tran­si­tions.”