The harvest in Puglia, which produces most of Italy’s output, has been affected by disease

Italy will run out of homegrown olive oil by April because of freak weather and a disease that has devastated olive harvests and will send supermarket prices soaring.

The warning was issued by Coldiretti, the Italian farming lobby, which said that the nation’s olive harvest last autumn dropped 57 per cent to 185,000 tonnes, a 25-year low, which will keep Italian consumers going for only four months this year. “We risk for ever losing the chance to consume Italian extra virgin olive oil, which will have disastrous effects on the economy, jobs, health and the countryside,” it said.

The harvest was hit hard by a cold snap last spring that killed off the blossom that develops into olives. However, a more ominous and long-term threat