CIHEAM Press Review

Le blocage, pendant plusieurs jours, du canal de Suez par le porte-conteneurs Ever Given a suscité beaucoup de commentaires, à propos du gigantisme des navires de commerce, symboles pour certains des excès d’une mondialisation à défaire. Si les chaînes de valeur méritent d’être rétrécies et que la relocalisation de certaines productions permettrait de réduire des vulnérabilités commerciales, il n’en demeure pas moins que les échanges internationaux restent nécessaires. Cela vaut dans le domaine agricole et alimentaire, où le rôle de la mer doit être souligné.

The Tuscan Regional Phytosanitary Service has released tech­ni­cal guide­lines for mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol­ling the olive fruit fly pop­u­la­tion by grow­ers and tech­ni­cians work­ing on organic and inte­grated farms.
Considered one of the most harm­ful olive tree pests due to the dam­age they cause to both the quan­tity and qual­ity of the fruit, this dipter­ous insect is found in the Mediterranean basin, South Africa, Central and South America, China, Australia and the U.S.

One of the most rel­e­vant olive oil pro­duc­ing areas in the south­ern Italian region of Puglia is once again under the attack from Xylella fas­tidiosa.
A new out­break of the deadly plant pathogen has been dis­cov­ered by the Italian author­i­ties in sev­eral olive trees close to Monopoli, in what is con­sid­ered the epi­demic buffer zone, a crit­i­cal mon­i­tor­ing area located between the infected and the safe zones.

In 2018, the surface area of organic olive groves increased by three percent in Spain. A country-wide push toward sustainability and better profit margins on organic oils are among the contributing factors.

Volunteers in Toscolano Maderno are demonstrating the economic and social value of abandoned olive trees.

Abandoned olive groves in the hills that surround Lake Garda, in northern Italy, are being recovered by a group of volunteers.

Isolated orchards and even scattered trees, many of which are survivors of old olive groves that were destroyed to make way for construction projects, are being harvested by the volunteers.

Jordan opened up its 132 olive oil mills across the kingdom this week for the start of the 2020/21 harvesting season. An average season has been predicted by producers and mill owners, with olive oil production estimated at between 23,000 and 24,000 tons.

An Olive Oil Times survey reveals a season of growing uncertainties and challenges for olive oil producers.

It is an indus­try known for its hard­ships. But even the resilient olive tree and the stal­wart farm­ers used to the ever-chang­ing cir­cum­stances of nature are bend­ing under the stresses of the 2020 har­vest now under­way in the Northern Hemisphere.

A land­mark study on the phe­nol­ogy of spit­tle­bugs may help olive farm­ers and local gov­ern­ments com­bat the spread of Xylella fas­tidiosa in the Mediterranean basin.
Over a period of three years, a team of researchers from Italy’s Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, the University of Turin, the University of Brescia and the University of Bari, stud­ied the repro­duc­tive traits and pop­u­la­tion move­ments of three species of spit­tle­bugs at two dif­fer­ent sites in Italy: one in Puglia (south­ern Italy) and one in Liguria (north­ern Italy).