Felipe Elvira studies the sprawling olive branches on a dusty hill in southern Spain in the scorching heat. “There are no olives in these. Everything is dry,” she says worried.
In Jaén, the birthplace of olive oil in Andalusia, this 68-year-old olive grower, who owns a 100-hectare farm with his son, is at risk of losing most of his harvest due to the country’s extreme drought.
“We’re used to drought here, but not like this,” sighs this 60-year-old man in a plaid shirt and white hair.
“Previously, there was 800 liters of water per square meter per year. Now it will be 300 or 400 liters, not much. The rains are getting less and less,” he complains.
Spain, which is on the front line where Europe is facing the effects of climate change, has suffered three extreme heat waves since May. These events further weakened crops, which had drier-than-normal winters.
“Olive trees are very resistant to water stress,” says Juan Carlos Hervás, an agricultural engineer at the agricultural association COAG. But when there’s extreme heat, they “activate physiological mechanisms to protect themselves: they don’t die, but production doesn’t take place,” he adds.
Very bad news for olive growers in the region. “On dry land (without irrigation) we will not be able to reach 20% of the average production of the last five years. On irrigated land, we will reach 50% or 60%,” the technician predicts.
“Dramatic Situation”
Water reserves are essentially anemic.
“The water supply in Andalusia is connected to the Guadalquivir basin, which feeds almost the entire region,” says Rosario Jiménez, professor of hydrology at the University of Jaén, and is “in an absolutely dramatic state.”
According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the reserves fed by the river and its tributaries are currently only 30% of their capacity. The researcher explains that some reservoirs “already have dropped to levels below 10% or are practically dry.”
It is a result of climate change and extreme weather events that farmers in the region have observed for years.
“It rains less than it goes, and when it rains, it rains: it produces a large amount of runoff and the soil doesn’t have time to store it,” explains Juan Carlos Hervás.
The Iberian Peninsula has never been as dry as a thousand years ago, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience in early July. This phenomenon will continue to worsen, with the risk of severely impacting some fields such as grape and olive trees.
A catastrophic prospect in Spain, where almost half of the planet’s olive oil is produced, with exports of 3.6 billion euros per year. “Many cities in the province depend on olive trees. If they are no longer produced, there is no income,” says Hervás.
source: Noticias
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