Blame Italian Olive Bugs for Year’s Dearth of Virgin Oil
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Every autumn, Fabio Landini lines up with other olive growers at a mill in Tuscany, Italy, where traditional stone presses crush the oil from his crop. This season, he didn’t get a single drop.
A fruit fly infestation has ravaged orchards across Italy, the world’s top producer of olive oil after Spain. In a country where ancient Romans coated themselves in olive oil and modern residents use it to dip bread or make pasta sauce, output may drop 35 percent this year, according to the Rome-based Institute of Services for Agriculture and Food Markets, or Ismea.