Spain’s Historic Drought Tightens the Screw
If 2022 lit the fuse, the summer of 2023 kept the fire burning. Western Europe baked through another historic drought, and the dominant olive producer — Spain — took the worst of it again.
What happened
A second consecutive year of historic drought gripped western Europe, with Spain — source of close to half the world’s olive oil — hardest hit. Survey after survey of producers reported drought slashing the 2023 harvest, a sharp rise on previous years. Two dry years back to back, at flowering and fruit-set, is exactly what an olive crop cannot absorb.
Why it mattered
This sealed it. With the big producer short two years running and no reserves to cushion the blow, the only possible outcome was the record prices that landed later in the year. The 2023 drought wasn’t a separate story from the price spike — it was the price spike, written in dry soil months ahead.
The olive is the great drought-survivor — which makes it alarming that drought is now what threatens it most. A tree that fed dry lands for millennia is meeting dryness beyond its limit, and it’s why the crop keeps spreading to new ground worldwide. The Mediterranean’s monopoly is ending partly because the Mediterranean is getting too hot for its own signature tree.
Background, summer 2023: widely reported western-European drought; producer surveys via Olive Oil Times.