The government has allocated 30 million euros for the reconversion of Apulian olive trees killed by the Xylella bacterium. The funds will be used to replant varieties resistant to the killer bacterium, to help those farms that have the strength and will to continue. But ten years of Xylella have wreaked havoc: 21 million olive trees have been lost in Puglia, while 200,000 hectares of land are still contaminated by a bacterium for which no cure has yet been found. Coldiretti calculates that since October 2013, when Xylella first appeared in the countryside around Gallipoli, 3 out of 4 olives have been lost across the province of Lecce, with olive oil production plummeting by 75%. In the province of Taranto, where patchy dry olive trees are recorded, production, on the other hand, has dropped by 15%. Forty percent of Apulia's territory is now reported to be infected. A disaster, for a region that alone accounts for 48% of all national extra virgin olive oil production. Science says that for Xylella there is no antidote, the only thing that can be done is to live with it by planting resistant trees.
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