10 March 2015, Benevento, Italy - A laboratory technician performing a quality control test on a sample of frozen olives affected by olive pest in the food and quality research laboratory of an olive oil factory. This year Italy's olive crop was particularly hard-hit by extensive attacks by olive fruit flies, Bactrocera oleae, and leaf scorch, caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, which has infected thousands of hectares of olive groves in the southern Italian province of Apulia.