Fears Disease Could Spell Disaster for Europe’s Olive Trees

There is grave concern in Europe’s olive oil sector over the first appearance there of a plant disease said to have already infected tens of thousands of olive trees – many of them a century-old – in Italy’s Puglia region. Scientists have recommended uprooting and destroying the diseased trees amid the “extremely rapid spread” of the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), according to Italian Member of the European Parliament Raffaele Baldassarre.