Island said to grow Greece’s tastiest pistachios faces death of its tradition
On the Greek island of Aegina, climate change, property development and a lack of young farmers threaten an old tradition
Four farmhands whack a pistachio tree with sticks and ripe nuts rain down onto tarps. The bounty seems plentiful, but the crew is unimpressed.
“Few pistachios,” says Daso Shpata, a 47-year-old Albanian worker, under a blazing sun on Greece’s Aegina island, among leafy trees bearing clusters of the red fruit and against a backdrop of chirping cicadas.
“The pistachio culture that we know is no longer viable,” says Eleni Kypreou, owner of the orchard on Aegina.
“If we want to save the trees, we need to decipher what they need … Otherwise, it’ll be something for the museum,” she adds.
Aegina is nowhere near the biggest pistachio producer, a distinction that goes to the United States and Iran, which produce several hundred thousand tonnes each year.