In Greece, one of the largest producers chestnuts in the world, farmer Anestis Altinis is looking for nuts suitable for harvesting. But after months of intense heat and drought, most have not ripened, a known problem in his village where production is expected to drop by 90 percent, according to Reuters.

“I don’t remember this ever happening before“, said Altinis, a third generation chestnut producer in the village of Kissos in Pelion in central Greece.

“We are almost at the end of the harvest season and the chestnuts are still on the treeshe said.

The chestnut harvest in Greece is expected to decrease to approx 15,000 tons in 2024, due to extreme weather conditions, half the average of the past five years, according to George NanoProfessor of Pomology at the University of Thessaly.

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

The decline in production comes after warmer winter and summerin Greece that has been recorded and is the latest indication of the effects of climate change on crops across southern Europe. Drought conditions in Spain, Portugal and France are already negative for the yields of various crops in these countries.

Chestnut growers in Thessaly, a region that accounts for about a quarter of Greece’s agricultural production, including chestnuts, say some areas have not experienced rainfall for 13 months after floods in September 2023 decimated the region.

“This year the situation is tragicsaid the Dwarf. “We have dead or very damaged trees, with very little production».

The harvests cherries, apples and walnuts have also been affected, farmers and scientists said.

This is a bad sign for Greece, where agricultural products represent one fifth of 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. He sees the economic impact of climate change to exceed 1% of economic output annually in the coming years, up from about 0.2%-0.3% on average over the past decade.

For farmer Altini, picking chestnuts with his grandfather shaped his childhood and created his future. But the decline in production is driving people away from the villages.

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

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