On August 10th, 2013, Donato Boscia, plant pathologist at the National Research Centre in Bari, Southern Italy, discovers a few dried out branches on his father in law’s ancient olive trees.

What seems to be a small thing, turns out to be what Boscia describes as „a volcano breaking out in the backyard of a volcanologist“: The most probably from Costa Rica imported bacteria Xylella Fastidiosa Pauca spreads itself with the help of an insect, the spittlebug, which feeds on the sap of plants. Once inside, the bacteria multiplies until the veins of the plants get clogged and it dies. The problem is known from the wine and citrus industry, but at the heel of Italy, it hits the oldest known form of agriculture in the world, olive orchards.

An estimated number of 10 million trees are planted mostly in monoculture in the Salento Region. Since the outbreak of the disease more than two million trees have fallen victim, some of the more than a thousand years old.