CJR - Olive Oil Times - Valuable Insight Into An Industry Stressing Rapidly From Climate Breakdown
Extreme heat in California, Siberian frost in Italy, drought in Australia. Olive Oil Times’s 2018 harvest survey, for which the trade publication polled thousands of olive growers in dozens of countries, reads like a summary of the manifestations of climate change around the world.
The Times, launched a decade ago as a personal blog for founder Curtis Cord’s olive oil tasting notes, has increasingly reported on the extreme and challenging conditions faced by olive producers. Connected with 30 writers in agricultural communities around the world, the Times gathers on-the-ground insights into climate change’s volatile, local impacts. Since its founding, the Times has published more than 4,500 articles on a range of subjects, from the health attributes of olive oil to the agricultural conditions underlying the industry.
The Times, which relies on freelance contributors based in olive oil-producing regions, tagged its first “climate change” stories about four years ago. Cord, who previously worked in sales in the fashion industry, noticed producers experiencing extreme weather trends. “We’re using that tag more and more on our articles,” he says.
Many of the regions Olive Oil Times covers reported particularly challenging seasons last year, though some producers don’t necessarily attribute the challenges to climate change. Greece had the fruit fly, and France struggled with too much rain. Shifting weather patterns aren’t always bad news, Cord says. “Other places where it might have been thought that they weren’t perfect for olive production are kind of looking good now.” Ylenia Granitto, a Rome-based olive oil expert who has covered the Italian sector of the industry for four years, frequently travels across the country to visit olive groves. She speaks with people responsible for pruning and grafting olive trees, and checks in with nurseries where young olive trees are cultivated. Bad seasons used to come around once every 10 to 15 years, Granitto says, but lately it’s been almost every other year.
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https://www.cjr.org/analysis/olive-oil-times-climate-change.php
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