Extra Virgin Olive Oil Production and Its Role As A Healthy And Sustainable Food
Food production systems have the potential to nurture human health and support environmental sustainability; however, many of them are currently threatening both. Providing a growing global population with healthy diets from sustainable food systems is an immediate challenge. Although global food production of calories has kept pace with population growth, more than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume low-quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to a substantial rise in the incidence of diet-related obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, including coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. Because much of the world’s population is inadequately nourished and many environmental systems and processes are pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed.
With some food production causing major global environmental risks, sustainable food production needs to work within a safe operating space for food systems at all scales on Earth. Therefore, sustainable food production for about 10 billion people should use no additional land, safeguard existing biodiversity, reduce consumptive water use and manage water responsibly, substantially reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, produce zero carbon dioxide emissions, and cause no further increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
Transformation to sustainable food production by 2050 will require global redistribution of nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser use, radical improvements in efficiency of fertiliser and water use, rapid implementation of agricultural mitigation options to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, adoption of land management practices that shift agriculture from a carbon source to sink, and a fundamental shift in production priorities.
The olive tree (Olea europaea L.) is an evergreen and long-lived species, cultivated around the Mediterranean for centuries for its edible fruits and the oil extracted from them. It is considered to be one of, if not the most ancient horticultural crop.
The olive tree is a very hardy and drought tolerant plant that has played a very important role as a natural forest for low rainfall areas of southern Europe, northern Africa and the near East. These plantations not only provide food and oil but also stabilise soils against erosion and host a great biodiversity.
In recent years, the olive production area has increased world-wide, due to the introduction of innovation in farming systems and cultivars. Accordingly, new lands were dedicated to the cultivation of olives, and new producer countries appeared on the market. This situation created a wide range of growing conditions that require separate analysis in order to properly evaluate their impact on the land and environment.
Following horticultural and processing best practices, the olive tree can be one of the key crops in order to achieve the sustainable food production needs highlighted in the above paragraphs.
