In the Southern region of Puglia, there 214k hectares of olive groves which have been infected by the Xilella fastidiosa bacterium. As the disease has almost entirely wiped out the region’s olive trees in the last two years, it is now threatening the olive crop elsewhere in the country.
Olive trees are usually hundreds years old and are now being destroyed by the wasting disease, which leaves them looking dehydrated as if burnt. The disease has spread as epidemic and will have not only a devastating effect on the region’s economic but also on the heritage and on the identity as they are a cultural symbol of the region. The European Union protocol requires the destruction of any olive tree and vegetation for a mile around the border of the affected zone, in this case the Salentinian Peninsula. But nobody can guarantee it will stop Xilella.
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