Olive Oil Prices Are Falling—So Should Olive Oil Climate Hysteria
Climate alarmists jump to hasty conclusions, then fail to correct the record.
It’s the follow-up story that never gets written. An agricultural commodity experiences a period of below-average yields and rising prices, and it is reported as a climate change–induced crisis. Then, after another year or two, the trend reverses, but there are few, if any, attempts to correct the record.
Olive oil prices are a recent example. Spain, the world’s largest producer of olives for oil, experienced severe heat and drought in the summers of 2022 and 2023, contributing to much lower yields and major price spikes in 2023 and into 2024.
There were several news accounts at the time warning about a new reality in which human-induced warming would decimate olive yields. An August 2023 CNN story entitled “Olive Oil is in Trouble as Extreme Heat and Drought Push the Industry Into Crisis” was typical. Citing scientists and industry experts, the article told us that the episode “would have been virtually impossible without climate change.”
The story, and others like it, painted a bleak future for those making their living from olives and a new normal of higher olive oil prices for consumers. Beyond olives, CNN informed readers that “Experts warn of worse to come for food production, as the human-caused climate crisis increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather.”
However, toward the end of 2024, olive oil prices began falling sharply and remain well below their peak, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The two most recent crops in Spain and other olive-growing nations have yielded enough to increase olive oil production substantially. Overall, the olive oil industry appears to be most of the way back to normal—hardly a crisis.
That should have surprised no one, especially the self-described experts relied upon in the gloomy coverage. Yields for olives, as with virtually every other agricultural commodity, have experienced year-to-year fluctuations throughout recorded history. While climate change’s influence on olives is entirely possible, an off year or two proves nothing. Over the longer term, overall yields for food crops have increased severalfold, especially in recent decades, when climate change was supposedly a headwind. Improved agricultural methods—which depend on fossil fuels for energy and fertilizer—have swamped any adverse climate impacts, if such impacts exist.
It is also worth noting the substantial scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide, blamed for contributing to climate change, has benefits for plant growth and may well be a net positive for agriculture. This may also help explain why agricultural bad news rarely has staying power while long-term trends remain positive.
In any event, the media outlets that raised the olive oil alarms ought to publish follow-up stories reporting the good news and conceding that the climate change link is not nearly as clear-cut as the original coverage suggested. None have done so.
Maybe it’s because they are too busy writing about the chocolate crisis.
Author: Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow who specializes in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
It’s the follow-up story that never gets written. An agricultural commodity experiences a period of below-average yields and rising prices, and it is reported as a climate change–induced crisis. Then, after another year or two, the trend reverses, but there are few, if any, attempts to correct the record.
Olive oil prices are a recent example. Spain, the world’s largest producer of olives for oil, experienced severe heat and drought in the summers of 2022 and 2023, contributing to much lower yields and major price spikes in 2023 and into 2024.
There were several news accounts at the time warning about a new reality in which human-induced warming would decimate olive yields. An August 2023 CNN story entitled “Olive Oil is in Trouble as Extreme Heat and Drought Push the Industry Into Crisis” was typical. Citing scientists and industry experts, the article told us that the episode “would have been virtually impossible without climate change.”
The story, and others like it, painted a bleak future for those making their living from olives and a new normal of higher olive oil prices for consumers. Beyond olives, CNN informed readers that “Experts warn of worse to come for food production, as the human-caused climate crisis increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather.”
However, toward the end of 2024, olive oil prices began falling sharply and remain well below their peak, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The two most recent crops in Spain and other olive-growing nations have yielded enough to increase olive oil production substantially. Overall, the olive oil industry appears to be most of the way back to normal—hardly a crisis.
That should have surprised no one, especially the self-described experts relied upon in the gloomy coverage. Yields for olives, as with virtually every other agricultural commodity, have experienced year-to-year fluctuations throughout recorded history. While climate change’s influence on olives is entirely possible, an off year or two proves nothing. Over the longer term, overall yields for food crops have increased severalfold, especially in recent decades, when climate change was supposedly a headwind. Improved agricultural methods—which depend on fossil fuels for energy and fertilizer—have swamped any adverse climate impacts, if such impacts exist.
It is also worth noting the substantial scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide, blamed for contributing to climate change, has benefits for plant growth and may well be a net positive for agriculture. This may also help explain why agricultural bad news rarely has staying power while long-term trends remain positive.
In any event, the media outlets that raised the olive oil alarms ought to publish follow-up stories reporting the good news and conceding that the climate change link is not nearly as clear-cut as the original coverage suggested. None have done so.
Maybe it’s because they are too busy writing about the chocolate crisis.
Author: Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow who specializes in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Ben Lieberman..............don't hold your breath while waiting for an apology or a correction
to an erroneous "climate change condition" report or article !
It is not in their vocabulary , mentality , ideology or humanity ! They have "their own truths" !
It's "all and everything for the cause ! " Only BAD NEWS is worth highlighting , even if it is a LIE !
The empirical TRUTH staring them in their ignorant faces is.....that "additional CO2 is GOOD for agriculture".....as you reported.........AND that the planet has never been in a better condition
[ for human flourishing ] than it is now ! THEIR PROBLEM is that THEY HATE HUMANITY !!!
....................................................................................................................................................................................................
The MOST MONSTROUS LIE is the reported "FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER" which killed
about 22,000 people ! NONE DIED AS A RESULT OF RADIATION ! ......................NONE !
........................AND YET THE MEDIA ARE STILL CALLING IT A NUCLEAR DISASTER !
All the deaths were due to the earthquakes and the resultant tsunami and to bungles in the
evacuation process as people fled to safer locations !
e.g. 'Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare' : A 2026 British-American documentary film directed by James Jones and Megumi Inman.......IS A LIE........IT WAS PREVENTED.......IT NEVER HAPPENED !!!!
"The man widely credited with saving Fukushima from a much worse nuclear catastrophe
is Masao Yoshida, the plant manager of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant during the 2011 disaster, who defied orders to stop using seawater to cool the reactors, a crucial decision that prevented a total meltdown, though he later died of cancer, possibly linked to the stress and radiation exposure."
Even the MEMORY OF THIS BRAVE MAN is tainted with the words " nuclear catastrophe".
IT WAS A NATURAL DISASTER THAT THEY DIED FROM , NOT A MAN-CAUSED CATASTROPHE !
The primary explosions that damaged the reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were caused by a buildup of hydrogen gas and oxygen [ in the air] which ignited .
The hydrogen gas came from a chemical reaction between zirconium alloy cladding (on the nuclear fuel rods) and high-temperature steam , it was a SIMPLE CHEMICAL EXPLOSION of Hydrogen NOT A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION which the "media" seems so intent on having us believe !
.
Ben.......it is great that people like you are writing articles to CORRECT THE LIES and DISTORTIONS and DANGEROUS PRIOPAGANDA that the "greens" and the Marxist-left have inculcated into the schools curricula and "hammered into the minds " of otherwise-sensible adults !
This explains the huge discounts I see on store shelves for imported olive oil. Even with the tariff, there is a BOGO continuously.