In Greece, one of the world’s largest chestnut producers, farmers search for nuts suitable for the Anestis altinis crop. But after months of scorching heat and drought, most of the crops have not ripened, a familiar problem in his village, where production is expected to drop by 90%.
“I don’t remember anything like this before,” said Altinis, a third-generation chestnut grower in the village of Kissos on Mount Pelion in central Greece.
“We have almost reached the end of the harvest season and there are chestnuts left on the trees,” he said.
According to George Nanos, professor of pomology at the University of Thessaly, the chestnut harvest in Greece is expected to fall to about 15,000 tonnes in 2024 due to extreme weather, half the average over the past five years.
Greece exports most of its chestnuts to Europe and the Balkans where they are used in confectionery and cooking.
The decline in production comes after Greece experienced its hottest winter and summer on record and is the latest sign of the impact of climate change on crops in southern Europe. Drought conditions in Spain, Portugal and France already bode poorly for yields of various crops in those countries.
Chestnut growers in Thessaly, a region that accounts for about a quarter of Greece’s agricultural output, including chestnuts, say some areas have not seen rain for 13 months after floods in September 2023 devastated the region.
“This year, the situation is sad,” Nanos said. “We have dead or very damaged trees, with very little production.”
Cherry, apple and walnut crops have also been affected, farmers and scientists said.
This is a bad sign for Greece, where agricultural products account for a fifth of total exports, and whose economy is still recovering from a decade-long debt crisis.
In a recent report, Greece’s central bank said it expects crop and fruit prices to rise in the coming years due to climate change. The fiscal impact of climate change is likely to exceed 1% of annual economic output in the coming years, up from an average of about 0.2%–0.3% over the past decade.
For farmer Altinis, picking chestnuts with his grandfather shaped his childhood and paved his future. But the decline in production is driving people away.
He urged officials to help with irrigation or risk desertification in some areas.
“If they don’t produce chestnuts, the villages will shrink, the mountains will become desolate,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
