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Olive Oil at Risk

Rows of olive trees next to the Iznájar reservoir in Andalusia.
Rows of olive trees next to the Iznájar reservoir in Andalusia. Photo: Carlos Gil (Getty Images)

The lack of water is taking a toll on one of the country’s most iconic products. Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil: It produced more than 1.1 million gallons of olive oil in 2019, handily beating out the second-place country, Greece, which produced a little over 336,000 gallons that same year.

But the BBC reported that the Spanish crop is already a third less productive than usual, and analysts told CNN that the olive harvest, which begins in October, could suffer losses between 33% and 38%.

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