Persistent Warm Weather Causes Headaches for Olive Oil Producers in Greece

Summary

Producers in Greece are fac­ing chal­lenges with the olive oil har­vest due to warm weather and a lack of work­ers, poten­tially affect­ing the qual­ity of the oil. The high humid­ity and warm tem­per­a­tures have led to an increase in olive pests, impact­ing the acid­ity lev­els of the olive oils and poten­tially lead­ing to a decrease in high-qual­ity oils and a rise in prices.

Amid a boun­ti­ful har­vest season, with the total yield of olive oil expected to exceed 300 thou­sand tons, prob­lems con­tinue to arise for pro­duc­ers in Greece.

The unnat­u­rally warm weather pre­vail­ing in large parts of the coun­try, with day­time tem­per­a­tures hov­er­ing at around 20°C, could com­pro­mise the qual­ity of some regions’ freshly-pro­duced Greek extra vir­gin olive oil.

“The har­vest has been delayed due to the weather con­di­tions and the lack of work­ers,” said Yiorgos Kokkinos, a pro­ducer from Messenia in south­ern Peloponnese.

“However, the weather has not cooled off yet, and the exist­ing high humid­ity helps the gloeospo­rium and the fruit fly thrive,” Kokkinos added. ​“All these have an impact on the qual­ity of the olive oils, with the acid­ity lev­els rang­ing from 0.8 to 1 in the last few days. I see that high-qual­ity olive oils are reduc­ing, some­thing that will even­tu­ally bring a rise in prices.”

Producers across the coun­try are accus­tomed to colder weather this time of the year. This would have favored the olive har­vest by keep­ing humid­ity lev­els low and pre­vent­ing olive pests from emerg­ing.

On Crete, where the har­vest is halfway through, the higher-than-usual tem­per­a­tures have also spread anx­i­ety among olive oil pro­duc­ers.

“The fact that it is hot and it doesn’t rain is bad,” said Vagelis Protogerakis, the head of the pro­duc­ers asso­ci­a­tion of Heraklion. ​“The fruit fly is present and causes some dam­age. I hope that the weather will change so that we have no fur­ther prob­lems.”

Meteorologists expect colder weather to set in across the coun­try no sooner than mid-January. For the time being, warmer days — with tem­per­a­tures ris­ing by a few degrees — are expected in south­ern Greece and many of the islands, includ­ing Crete, at the begin­ning of 2023.

• Agrotypos
• Nea Kriti