Olive oil producers in the province of Huelva are growing increasingly concerned after losing as much as 70 per cent of their crop yield following an extremely hot summer, as seen in footage captured on Thursday.
“This campaign has been very bad. Here we calculated that we would get a specific percentage of olives, and it has been reduced by 60 per cent or 70 per cent. That’s how things are, and it if doesn’t rain, I don’t know what we will do,” explained Jesus, an olive oil producer.
High temperatures and lack of rain have had dire consequences on Spanish orchards, with crops growing smaller and thinner as a result.
“(The drought) affects practically everything. It affects the tree in the first place, because it does not have the necessary water to take its nutrients, and also the growth of the fruit and therefore the oil extraction,” said Jose Anselmo, President of Olibeas
This year’s olive harvest in Spain will reportedly be one of the worst of the century, second only to the 2012-2013 season.
The Spanish summer of 2022 was the third-driest since records began in 1964. It was also the country’s hottest record.
