Even if it really does make a difference it's not a price worth paying IMHO.
Agree completely - and anyway the whole love of olives and olive oil goes back to days of traditional growing and harvesting - they would avoid harvesting in the heat of the middle of the day. Traditional Olive groves are a sight to behold, with the beautiful trees often 100's of years old and NOT irrigated - and great for wildlife. Now these bloody hedges covering massive "as far as the eye can see" landscapes use vast amounts of water to increase planting to production time and the whole reason for planting in as hedges is to facilitate the use of those infernal hoovering machines. Even if night harvesting is stopped, the effect on dryland steppic species has been and continues to be devastating.
Species severely affected include Great and Little Bustards, Stone Curlew, Sandgrouse species, Tawny Pipit, Calandra and other larks, Spanish Imperial, Bonell's and Golden Eagles, European Roller, Black-eared Wheatear, Spectacled Warbler - the list goes on.
Also, farmers who have traditional, old fashioned Olive groves are being priced out of the market. The largest reservoir in Europe, the Alqueva reservoir in Portugal was constructed (against much protest from locals and conservationists) not so many years ago to facilitate the irrigation of massive olive farms and suchlike in these bio-diverse dry areas.
This reservoir has a large number of islands, many off which have been bought by Portuguese and Spanish "elite" with luxury houses and boats -the very same people in many cases who are financing this whole olive mess.
There is also a new and very lucrative tourist industry to ferry people around on boat trips, camping sites with beaches etc etc now......I want to scream!
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