Greece's chestnut harvest set to shrink, hit by drought and heat

By Lefteris Papadimas and Alexandros Avramidis

In Greece, one of the world's largest chestnut producers, farmer Anestis Altinis searches for nuts suitable for harvest. But after months of searing heat and drought, most have not ripened, a familiar problem in his village where output is expected to drop 90%.

"I don't remember this happening before," said Altinis, a third-generation chestnut producer in Kissos village on Mount Pelion in central Greece.

"We have reached almost the end of the harvest season and the chestnuts remain on the trees," he said.

The chestnut harvest in Greece is expected to drop to about 15,000 tonnes in 2024 because of the extreme weather, half the average over the past five years, according to George Nanos, a professor of Pomology at the University of Thessaly.

Greece exports most of its chestnuts to Europe and the Balkans where they are used in confectionery and cooking.

The drop in production comes after Greece's warmest winter and summer on record and is the latest sign of the impact of climate change on crops across southern Europe. Drought conditions in Spain, Portugal and France already bode ill for yields of various crops in those countries.

Chestnut producers in Thessaly, a region accounting for about a quarter of Greece's agricultural output, including chestnuts, say some areas haven't experienced rainfall for 13-months after floods in September 2023 decimated the area.

"This year, the situation is tragic," Nanos said. "We have dead or very damaged trees, with very little production."

Cherry, apple and walnut harvests have also been hit, farmers and scientists said.

That's a bad sign for Greece, where agricultural products account for a fifth of its 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. It sees the financial impact of climate change exceeding 1% of economic output annually in the coming years, up from about 0.2%-0.3% on average in the past decade.

For farmer Altinis, picking chestnuts with his grandfather shaped his childhood and paved his future. But the fall in output is driving people away.

He urged authorities to help with irrigation or risk desertification in some areas.

"If they don't produce chestnuts, the villages will shrink, the mountain will be deserted," he said.