Irrigated olive plantations are expanding in areas with serious water shortages, including Crete, Puglia (Italy), and Andalucia. In 1997 the Jaen area (within the Guadalquivir river basin) had a 480 million m³ water deficit, it is estimated that some 300 million m3 was consumed irrigating olive farms.

Natural habitats and ancient groves are being cleared for new intensive plantations in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Fifty cases of forest clearance for new olive plantations were documented in Cordoba, Spain during the 1990s.

Almost the whole 2,250 million Euro EU Common Agricultural Policy budget for olives is spent on production subsidies - paying farmers according to the amount of olives they produce - a policy that encourages intensification of production, irrigation and the expansion of olive growing.

"Intensive olive farming is a major cause of one of the biggest environmental problems facing Europe today" said Elizabeth Guttenstein, WWF’s European Agriculture Policy Officer "Olive farming could be a model for environmentally and socially sustainable land use in the Mediterranean region. Instead EU subsidies for olive farming are driving the Mediterranean environment to ruin."

Agriculture Ministers agreed in 1998 on the need for reform of the olive sector and established an interim subsidy regime intended to run until November 2001. On June 19 EU Agriculture Ministers agreed a proposal by the European Commission to extend the interim regime until 2003, postponing yet again the necessary reform. Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece asked Agriculture Ministers to delay reform for five years. Ironically, this proposal was tabled at the last Agriculture Ministers meeting after which Portugal put forward a much heralded plan to reform EU farming subsidies.

"Payments that reward intensive production should be abolished and replaced with flat rate payments for area of land cultivated - removing the incentive to irrigate land and intensify production" said Giovanna Pisano Agriculture Policy Officer of Birdlife International.

iGreen comment

The olive subsidy is an example of the worst kind of EU farm subsidy, a subsidy to farm more intensively. It is typical of the way the unintended effects of government policies harm the environment. Flat rate payments for area of land cultivated, would be better, but would still do some harm. They will still encourage uneconomic olive groves to remain under cultivation, and farmers to stay in poverty minding them. The environmental solution is simple.  Remove the subsidies.  

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