OK, it’s not necessarily a serious national disaster, but if you’ve ever been near a Croatian table for the Christmas holidays, you’re aware that walnut plays an important role in Croatian cuisine.
The tradition of making orahnjača (sometimes called orehnjača), a walnut roll, is strong in most parts of Croatia, both for the holidays and on an ordinary Sunday, as dessert after the family meal. It’s so strong that it gets exported across the oceans, wherever Croatians live. Orahnjača’s first cousin in makovnjača, the same type of dessert, just made with poppy seeds, instead of ground walnuts. But, orahnjača is not the only Croatian traditional delicacy with walnuts, and you can sometimes hear (probably you’ve even heard it from me if we ever got to talking about sweets) that you can’t even make a decent dessert unless it includes walnuts.
Well, in the past several years, the yields of the walnut trees (which can be found in most parts of continental Croatia) have not been good, and this year they’re almost disastrous. In a normal year, a walnut tree in its prime can give up to 30 kilograms of walnuts. This year, the average yield for Croatian producers is – between one and two kilograms! They can’t even cover their basic expenses with that, let alone make any money. Climate change is to blame, as with most things in nature these days, as the climate has helped a parasite develop, and it destroyed this year’s fruits. Damir Štefec, owner of a family farm which owns 350 walnut trees told his story to 24sata daily. Their farm is on Bilogora hills, ideal for walnuts, but his crop has been destroyed this year by the walnut husky fly, a parasite which arrived from the United States. Štefec says that he was able to produce walnuts before without any treatment of the walnut trees, but that he sees that he’s going to have to change that practice in order to fight the pest.
The problem is that the Croatian market really needs this product, and Štefec had to turn down some buyers for it – as he’s got nothing to sell to them! He says he barely has enough for his own needs. He has no plans to chop down the trees and sell them for timber like some other people have been doing, but he would like the experts to help him find solutions for his problem.
However, Štefec doesn’t expect the price of walnuts on the Croatian market to go up, because imported walnuts will fill the void. Moldavia, for instance, has strong support for their walnut growers, and are big exporters to other countries, including Croatia. On the markets in Zagreb, the price of the shelled walnuts is around 80 kunas, and the bigger halves are more expensive, around 100 kunas. In the supermarkets, the price is around 70 kunas.
