TV chefs such as Jamie Oliver are causing "environmental catastrophe" by fuelling demand for olive oil, it was claimed today.

Parts of Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal are turning into deserts and suffering water shortages because of the intensive olive farming that has developed to slake British thirst for the oil, the Ecologist magazine says.

Since Oliver and fellow chefs have used olive oil in most recipes demand has soared. Between 2000 and 2005 UK sales increased by 39 per cent. More is spent on it than all other cooking oils.

But the idyllic images of olive groves on the front of bottles mask the true industrial nature of farming the fruit, it is claimed.

Trees are densely planted in big tracts of irrigated lowland plains and harvested by machines that shake the trunks. This uses more water and chemicals than traditional farms on upland terraces.

The Ecologist says: "To meet this new appetite mass-market brands are produced intensively so supermarkets can sell in high volumes at lower prices.Demand for mass-produced oil is making it a struggle for traditional farms to be economically viable."

The World Wildlife Fund said in 2001 that the more intensive plantations were of "little or no conservation value and create environmental problems — desertification, pollution from agri-chemicals and depletion of water resources."

Guy Beaufoy, a consultant on agricultural and environmental policies in Europe, said the situation was "an environmental catastrophe".

He said Spain was suffering its fourth consecutive year of drought but more than 80 per cent of the water was devoted to irrigated crops.

He said: "People are drilling water resources not touched for thousands of years — all for a few more olives."

Italy and Greece are also expanding olive production even though ground water has been severely depleted.

Britons are advised to buy organic olive oil produced on traditional farms.

• 

  Sex, lies and the Stasi

  On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally breached, ending the reign of East Germany’s feared security service. Here Anne McElvoy, who spent much of the Eighties in the city, recalls her encounters with the spooks

  ---

• 

  The geeky-girl solo artists descending on the music scene

  Kookiness is what sells music these days and these opinionated artists have it in spades, says Jasmine Gardner

  ---

Why Sam's in the clear over that M&S dress

At last the truth about the M&S spotted dress that Sam Cam wore to the Conservative Party Conference

All stories