The olive oil harvest is recovering after two years of drought and finally suggests a moderation in prices

2024-10-12 10:45:00

The first are already starting to be seen in the fields and rural roads. trailers loaded with freshly harvested olives. And even if it is still early (in many regions there are only a few weeks until the start of the harvest), the forecasts for this year are more than optimistic. Everything indicates that the olive oil harvest will experience a recovery in average production in Spain afterwards two extraordinarily low campaignsdecimated due to drought. According to data managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, the 2024-2025 harvest will reach 1,262,300 tonnes, which would represent a 48% increase compared to the previous season, and it would be 4% above the average of the last six campaigns. The rains that fell last spring, just when the olive trees were in full bloom and the fruits were starting to set, were crucial for recovery.

“The data is positive” and the recovery of production potential will allow this return to normality on the markets“, predicted the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, after having verified the information that the main producing areas have sent to Madrid in recent weeks. “We find ourselves in a favorable situation to have a sufficient volume to supply the national market, with a reasonable price for families and lower than the very high amounts that have been reached,” Planas recently said in an interview with Europa Press.

In fact, with the start of the harvest in the first farms, the Price and Market Observatory of the Junta de Andalucía, the reference market for this product in Spain, has already begun to record significant decreases in prices at originwhich is how much the mills (where the oil is produced) pay the farmers. It is therefore to be expected that these will decrease be transferred, sooner or later, to the retail price, what consumers pay in store.

It rains in the final stretch

However, especially in dry olive groveswe must continue waiting for the weather conditions of the next few weeks, warns the ministry, “which will be decisive to guarantee the correct evolution of the olive tree, since the rainfall in this phase of cultivation is fundamental for the production of the oil”, it underlines. There is time, because the strength of the collection usually does not arrive entered in November. Although there are areas like denomination of origin (DO) Siuranain the Tarragona region, where some oil mills have already opened to begin receiving olives being harvested.

“Here it is from October 15th when basically everything the mills begin to grind“, explain sources from the DO. Even their neighbors from the Designation of origin Garrigues, in Lleida they work with the same foresight. But despite good global expectations, in these two territories of Catalonia (the third Spanish autonomy in terms of olive oil production), the estimate is currently 59% less than last year, Which was, in itself, bad enough. “We are at the expense of the rains that come to see if we can improve this prediction in some way…On land this water can be very beneficial,” industry sources say.

The most notable increase in the harvest will be recorded Andalusia, Spain’s major oil producer, with an increase of 77% compared to the previous campaign. Farmers in that region estimate they will produce 1,021,000 tons of oil, which will represent 81% of the state total, when in the previous campaign it was just 68%. Also notable is the rise of the second largest oil producing community, Castile-La Manchawith 140,000 tonnes, 29% more than in the 2023-2024 campaign. Instead, inside Aragon and the Valencian Communitytwo other territories with weight in this sector, this campaign should be smaller with reductions of 45% for the first and 71% for the second.

Sign up to continue reading