Drought tests resilience of Spain’s olive groves and farmers

By RAQUEL REDONDO and JOSEPH WILSON
Associated Press

QUESADA, Spain (AP) — An extremely hot, dry summer is now threatening the heartiest of Spain’s staple crops: the olives that make the European country the world’s leading producer of the tiny green fruits that are pressed into golden oil. Industry experts and authorities predict Spain’s fall olive harvest will be nearly half the size of last year’s, another casualty of global weather shifts caused by climate change. High temperatures in May killed many of the blossoms on the olive trees in Spanish orchards. The ones that survived produced fruits that were small and thin because of inadequate water. A little less moisture can actually yield better olive oil, but the recent drought is proving too much for them.