Olive oil industry turning farmland into desert

Published on Monday 25 August 2008 22:02

BRITAIN'S love of olive oil is turning parts of Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal into deserts as intensive farming methods put pressure on dwindling water supplies.

Between 2000 and 2005, UK sales of olive oil soared by 39 per cent; more money is spent on it than all other cooking oils.

But idyllic images of olive groves on the labels mask the industrial nature of farming the fruit, it is claimed.

Trees are densely packed, planted in huge swathes of irrigated lowland plains and harvested by machines that shake the trunks, which uses more water and chemicals than traditional upland terrace farms, says a report in the magazine Ecologist.

"We've become a nation of drizzlers. To meet this new appetite, mass-market brands are produced intensively, so supermarkets can sell it in high volumes at lower prices," it says.

Typically, 500ml of own-brand olive oil sells for less than 2.50.

A report by the ecology charity WWF 2001 said the more intensive plantations were of "little or no conservation value, and create environmental problems – desertification, pollution from agrichemicals, depletion of water resources".

Guy Beaufoy, a consultant on agricultural and environmental policies in Europe, said the situation was "an environmental catastrophe".

Despite Spain suffering its fourth consecutive year of drought, he said, more than 80 per cent of the country's water was devoted to irrigated crops.

Parts of Italy and Greece were also expanding olive production even though ground water had been severely depleted, he added.