Hanging just a few feet from California's famous Cabernet, olives now have some winegrowers seeing new green. With the massive popularity of wine in recent years, a ton of new plantings have in some cases flooded the market with wine grapes, thus driving down profit, so some growers and wineries are diversifying with a match made..well in the med.
Longtime Lodi, California farmer Mike Manna from Acampo AG says, "We're still only a dot on the map of the olives world-wide."
But with U.S. consumption surging and only about 1% olive oil actually produced in the United States, some farmers are planting what could be the golden state's next cash crop. "Some of the people who have older grape vines are pulling them out, even cherry orchards, walnut orchards, and then also using just bare land that's not being used…they are planting olive orchards," says Manna.
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