Prolonged drought e high temperature will result in a 95 percent collapse in the production of Lucan extra virgin olive oilor. It is the estimate of Oprol-Lucani olive growers, whose president, Paolo Colonna, is drastic: “Not only has production in its entirety been skipped for the autumn campaign, but if the current climatic conditions persist, a heavy mortgage will be placed on the 2025/26 campaign."
State of calamity requested
The priority request in this emergency phase is the recognition of the state of disaster, for the agricultural sector as a whole and specifically for the olive growing sector. “We ask for policies to support Lucanian olive growing which – highlights Column – it is made not by large numbers of family businesses, but by excellence linked to the territories. So put all a series of proposals in a framework of common vision where to bring Lucanian olive growing".
A shared plan for the future
For Oprol, greater support is needed for professional organizations in the sector as a driving force for commercial and landscape protection policies. “You can imagine – explains the president – a CSR measure on the basis of an Agea-Pnrr tender already carried out with enormous success. Central aim: to give directions to specific areas suitable for olive growing for an increase in the olive grove surface with the clear objective of increasing production. Again, support aggregation. Where the olive supply chain has achieved greater success with clear reflections on the socio-economic sector".
Therefore emergency interventions accompanied by a plan or rather a shared vision of Lucanian olive growing made up of clear objectives: increase in production; generational change; combat abandonment; recovery of internal areas; encourage studies and research on local cultivars such as majatica which in recent decades, acting as an alarm bell, essentially no longer produces (a phenomenon linked to climate change).
