
ALICANTE/BARI – Southern Europe, especially Italy and Spain, is facing a growing environmental crisis — the rapid desiccation of olives as well as other kinds of trees. In Italy it has caused significant ecological and economic losses, but several scientific approaches show that the plants could be cured from the bacteria. In Spain, regional governments have adopted very different measures in response to tree epidemics, and farmers are divided in their opinions about them.
The rapid drying process of olive trees in Southern Italy has a devastating economic, cultural and environmental impact. Initially attributed to a complex of causes, it was then blamed on the bacterium
Xylella, indicated as the only responsible. The goal became to eradicate the bacterium by uprooting trees. However the bacterium was not eradicated.
In the meantime, in 11 years, Apulian landscape has been devastated, several trees have been abandoned and many others have been uprooted in a region that boasts the primacy of olive production in Italy, the 60% of the national total, with over 60 million olive trees, many of which are centuries-old.
Yet, as this investigation has verified, there are treatment protocols for Apulian olive trees that some independent researchers have been experimenting with for years and that have given positive results with olive-growing companies in the infected area that have never stopped producing. But the institutions do not take it into account. Yet, this too is now established, not all the trees affected by the desiccation have been infected by the bacterium.
In Spain, the situation is radically different. There, the bacteria has mainly affected almond trees in two regions: the Balearic Islands and Alicante. The protocol applied is different: while in the Balearic
Islands the option was to contain the disease (eliminate infected trees), in Alicante the option was to eradicate it (eliminate infected trees and all those within 50 metres of them), which has caused greater damage.
Specialists argue that eliminating infected trees is the only possible option, although affected farmers have very different opinions: while some believe it is the only solution, others are very critical of public administrations.
Now, the bacteria has been detected in Extremadura, a border region with Portugal and where olive trees are the main crop, with almost 300,000 hectares in the last campaign. If the pathogen were to enter the olive groves, it could lead to unthinkable economic losses for Extremadura, which has opted for an eradication strategy since it detected the first cases.
This investigation was conducted by verifying the validity of the treatment protocols in the field, interviewing the protagonists, the institutional part and studying a mass of scientific documents, regional, national and European regulations, acts of the prosecutors and court sentences, in the years invested in the issue, revealing, in the case of Italy, a complex network of interests behind institutional choices.
Illustration (c) Giacomo Madaro: The image has been taken with a drone and shows the contrast between the canopies of the green trees and the gray ones next to them, in Donato Minosi's land. Minosi is an olive-growing entrepreneur from southern Puglia. His company is located in the heart of the area declared infected by the Xylella bacterium. In his olive grove, he has experimented with the so-called Scortichini protocol, a biofertilizer based on zinc, copper and citric acid, to be distributed on the tree canopy, periodically, from spring to autumn, because, he says, "I didn't want to lose what I had done in 50 years". Since the beginning of the proclaimed epidemic, Donato has never stopped producing.
Photos below:
*1: Almond tree infected by the bacteria in Mallorca (Balearic Islands) (c) Dani Domínguez
*2: Label placed by the Government of the Valencian Community after taking samples. (c) Óscar F. Civieta
ONLINE
- Xylella, le strategie naturali funzionano, Il Manifesto, 30/01/2025
-
Xylella fastidiosa: la bacteria que deseca Alicante y Baleares y que ahora amenaza a Extremadura, La Marea, 30/01/2025
More to come
COUNTRIES
- Italy
- Spain
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