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Food

The World's Best Pesto Is in Peril as Basil Prices Plunge

Genovese pesto—the crown jewel of pestos, made from Pra’ basil grown on Italian hillsides—is being hurt by the cheaper, mass-produced pesto varieties that line supermarket shelves.
Photo via Flickr user Kmeron

Dark tidings abound in the world of food, from news that there is trash in our fish to the revelation that the devastating drought is killing wild mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest. In today's sign of the apocalypse, Italian farmers fear that falling prices for basil could place the very existence of traditional Genovese pesto in peril.

Pesto originated in Genova, and Genovese pesto remains the crown jewel of pestos, made from Pra' basil grown on hillsides in the Pra' region outside Genova in Italy's north. Like Champagne and Parmesan cheese (which you'll need a lot of to make pesto), Pra' basil, which has been grown by farmers in the area for centuries, is safeguarded by a European Union protected designation of origin.

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Pra's prized pesto has been hurt by cheaper, mass-produced pesto made from other basil varieties that line supermarket shelves, according to The Telegraph. People haven't been shelling out for the real thing, and, in a twist of fate, the basil used to make the good stuff is now selling on the cheap—and it's hurting farmers.

"Things have been bad for years," 80-year-old Pra' basil farmer Francesco Ratto told The Local. "But at the moment it's terrible. In spite of its quality, it is currently the cheapest basil on the market."

Photo via Flickr user Katrin Gilger

Photo via Flickr user Katrin Gilger

The price for Pra' basil is currently around 63 cents per bunch, and Ratto finds that he is making just $12 to $15 or so each day. With winter fast approaching, he says he will be unable to afford to turn on his greenhouses. Ratto runs his farm with his wife, and their farm is one of about a hundred small family-run farms in the region growing Pra' basil.

And as anyone who has tried to make pesto at home in recent years knows too well, to add to the basil farmers' misery, the price of pine nuts has been riding historical highs. That keeps the price of finished Genovese pesto high in stores and expensive to make at home.

"My basil used to make what was the food of the common man, but nowadays our traditional Genovese pesto is considered a high-end gourmet item," Ratto told The Local. "Nobody makes traditional Genovese pesto at home anymore."

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Andrea Sanpietro, the regional director of Italy's agriculturale confederation, Confagricultura, told Il Secolo XIX that, "Farmers of Pra' basil find themselves facing a real crisis."

And it isn't pesto's only crisis. In eastern Russia, it has been suggested that the overharvesting of pine nuts has led to increased bear attacks. If only there were a way to address all of pesto's problems, saving bears and the welfare of octogenarian Italian basil farmers in one go. Time will tell.