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Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece

2022-11-01 18:23:19Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA FLORIAN SCHMITZ

 

Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece
Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece

 

Heat, drought, water scarcity: Climate change threatens Greek agriculture. The existence of the villagers is threatened. Soon whole parts of the country could dry up completely.

"Lesbos without the olive tree cannot be imagined," says Michailis Bakkas, environmental activist from Mytilini. "The olive is part of our culture. Here on Lesvos there are millions of olive trees. For centuries, olive production has been an important branch of the economy of Lesvos, the third largest Greek island." All the wealth of the island is based on the olive," says Bakkas.

The numerous neoclassical villas, rising in the best neighborhoods of the island's capital, Mytilini, bear witness to a time when quality olive oil brought the island great income. But climate change is also harming olive trees, which are very resistant to drought.

"The summer season is getting drier and drier, says environmentalist Bakkas. In 1922, there was no rain at all for five months. "Even the winters are not cold anymore. But olives need this to grow. Even when it rains, it falls so heavily on Lesvos that the trees are unable to absorb the water. "Especially extreme weather events in the spring can make the olives not bloom.

 

Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece
Farmer Mihalis Bakkas in Lesbos is worried about the future of his olive groves

 

Bakkas is in contact with many of the island's villagers, for whom climate change has opened up trouble. "The villagers are shocked," he says. "They see that their production is falling. At the same time, the prices of olive oil in the market cannot cover the expenses of the villagers. In these conditions, one cannot think about investments for the future. "Many don't know what to do, so they leave the job with the olives and look for another one."

Traditional planting for the future

Michalis Bakkas becomes concerned about the future of olive trees, with which so much history and identity, but also existence, is connected. "People must become active to mitigate the consequences of climate change, with the same determination that they fought the corona," the environmental activist demands.

Some olive farmers on Lesvos have realized that a change of mindset is needed at the local level. One of them is Prokopis Bantzos. He has a biodynamic farm, which means he works with nature and not against it. He uses neither chemical fertilizers nor insecticides. Batzis is based entirely on the natural resistance of olive trees. The point is to let the fertile soil work, without interfering with it," he says.

 

Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece
Lesvos, the tradition of olive groves and the endangerment of the plant by climate change

 

 

The fall of the harvest is inevitable

As with all the villagers in Lesvos and Bantzos, this year's harvest will not be as much as expected. Although this year's summer was not as warm as last year, the rains have fallen very little." The trees cannot sprout new shoots. They have to conserve energy to stay alive," says Bantzos. For this reason, lower yield is expected in the future.

However, Michalis Bakkas wants olive growers on Lesvos to take a cue from Prokopis Bantzis' biodynamic farm. "The old methods apply very well even today for the cultivation of olives. Here comes the rich and diverse fauna in the land between the olive trees. "These plants give the trees the right humidity and collect the water." Many villagers would use chemicals to get rid of them. But the usefulness of biodiversity in nature should be explained to them, he says.

 

Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece
Prokopis Bantzis says there is a drop in olive harvest due to drought in summer 2022

 

Greece is drying up

Extreme heat, dry spells, droughts and storms: recent years have given the abstract concept of climate change a face, which in different regions of Greece appears in different ways. "We have in Greece a great variety of landscapes, some of which resemble those of Africa in the south and those of Central Europe in the north. The west of the country, with its high levels of rainfall, is quite different from the dry east," explains Rigas Tsiakiris, forest engineer and climate expert at the forest authority of Ioannina in western Greece. Predictions for the future are worrying for the whole country, he says.

Agriculture and livestock depend on frozen drinking water, which from the mountains feeds groundwater, springs and rivers. But due to the accelerated melting of the ice, conditions have changed, resulting in a decrease in drinking water. "Forecasts indicate that large parts of Greece will be affected by the creation of the desert," explains Tsiakiris. According to a study, more than a third of the earth's surface is acutely threatened: "In the coming decades, this will be the biggest problem not only in Greece, but in the entire eastern Mediterranean region."

Image from the olive groves near Athens airport. The Mediterranean area covers 95 percent of the world's olive production according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Spain, Greece and Italy are the three leading countries with this production.

 

Climate change threatens olive trees in Greece
Image from the olive groves near Athens airport. The Mediterranean area covers 95 percent of the world's olive production according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Spain, Greece and Italy are the three leading countries with this production.

 

 

Politics must change attitude

Elias Papatheodorou is Secretary General of the environmentalist party in Greece. This party has little political power. In the last elections, they did not manage to win even one percent of the votes. But environmental issues are slowly entering people's perspective. Papatheodorou hopes for more support in next year's parliamentary elections, especially due to climate-related changes, quite visible in everyday agriculture. "Agriculture is a pillar of Greek culture", says the environmentalist politician. "We already have problems with olives. With climate change, we are noticing an increase in plant diseases that did not exist before."

Even grape production is at risk, or feta cheese production, as sheep and goats may have limited access to pastures in the future. Therefore, the energy transition is now important, not only in Greece, but everywhere. Still a few large companies control energy consumption. This model is neither ecologically nor economically future-proof.

"In the future, farmers will have to produce the energy they consume themselves", emphasizes Papatheodorou. The same goes for cities. Only if people were directly involved in the benefits of the energy transition, it can be realized, thereby preventing the many consequences of climate change./ DW

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