Urgent Need to Increase Water Supply in Italy, Producers Warn

“There is an urgent need to increase water sup­ply and reduce the effects of cli­mate change,” the national pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion, Italia Olivicola, has warned.

The orga­ni­za­tion said that low rain­fall and the scorch­ing heat in recent weeks in the main olive grow­ing regions are mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion worse, espe­cially in places that have expe­ri­enced wild­fires.

“On the one hand, this cli­matic con­tin­gency helps to curb the spread of the dreaded olive fly, which prefers cooler and more humid habi­tats,” said Gennaro Sicolo, the pres­i­dent of Italia Olivicola.

“On the other, it risks com­pro­mis­ing the pro­duc­tion per­for­mance of the upcom­ing har­vest­ing cam­paign, bring­ing fur­ther con­cerns also for sub­se­quent ones in rela­tion to pro­duc­tion quan­tity and qual­ity,” he added.

Olive farm­ers were hope­ful dur­ing the first part of 2021 as olive groves flow­ered abun­dantly. Then, as flow­ers gave way to fruits, their hopes held firm with promises of a good har­vest in the face of chal­lenges brought about by the Covid-19 pan­demic.

However, rain failed to fall at the right times, and drought per­sisted for months. The dry con­di­tions were also accom­pa­nied by high tem­per­a­tures and fires, which have dimin­ished hopes of sub­stan­tial pro­duc­tion increases.

Through the years, the olive tree has been known as a hardy crop that can with­stand arid cli­mates; how­ever, recent cli­matic con­di­tions are threat­en­ing the trees’ abil­ity to resist dry spells.

“The heat and the strong water stress to which the plants are sub­jected are risk fac­tors for the devel­op­ment and ripen­ing of the fruit not only in the upcom­ing cam­paign but could also have a neg­a­tive impact on sub­se­quent ones,” Sicolo said.

However, he added that the dura­bil­ity of the olive tree to hot and dry tem­per­a­tures jus­tify sig­nif­i­cantly increas­ing polit­i­cal and eco­nomic efforts to sup­port the sec­tor and increase the com­pet­i­tive­ness of olive grow­ers.

“The con­stant request to increase the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the sup­ply chain is not con­sis­tent with the de facto unavail­abil­ity of an ade­quate sup­ply of tools to achieve the desired stan­dards, as in the case of irri­ga­tion sys­tems,” Sicolo said.

Currently, Italy’s agri­cul­ture faces many chal­lenges, includ­ing decreas­ing rain­fall over the years. This is com­pounded by poor infra­struc­ture for col­lect­ing water, low soil mois­ture and high tem­per­a­tures that inten­sify evap­o­ra­tion.

In addi­tion, the grad­ual deser­ti­fi­ca­tion of the south­ern region has not made things bet­ter. Overtime time, the prob­lem is also expected to creep north­ward.

Currently, about 70 per­cent of Sicily is at risk of deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, while in the north­ern parts of the coun­try, the risk of deser­ti­fi­ca­tion is at 30 to 50 per­cent.

“Under cur­rent con­di­tions, mak­ing an appeal to the national gov­ern­ment and the regions, farms are not able to receive ade­quate sup­port for the cre­ation of irri­ga­tion sys­tems,” Sicolo con­cluded. ​“We can over­come this impos­si­bil­ity by cre­at­ing ad hoc tools and finan­cial endow­ments for the water sup­ply in the olive groves.”

• Italia Olivicola