60 Years in, Olive Council Looks at Challenges Ahead

The International Olive Council (IOC) cel­e­brated its six­ti­eth anniver­sary on a visit to Rome, where some of its top offi­cials gath­ered to dis­cuss the emerg­ing per­spec­tives and chal­lenges fac­ing the inter­gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion.

The IOC was estab­lished in 1959 under the aus­pices of the United Nations and is cur­rently com­posed of 17 mem­ber nations as well as the European Union.

Abdellatif Ghedira, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the IOC, told Olive Oil Times about the IOC’s long-term vision of sus­tain­abil­ity and touched upon some of the olive-grow­ing world’s biggest chal­lenges, includ­ing cli­mate change.

Ghedira acknowl­edged that, over the last decade, pro­ducer coun­tries have suf­fered dif­fi­cult sea­sons char­ac­ter­ized by extreme weather con­di­tions.

In an Olive Oil Times sur­vey, grow­ers from around the world said irreg­u­lar weather pat­terns caused them trou­ble dur­ing this year’s har­vest.

“Climate change is already hav­ing an impact on world pro­duc­tion, lead­ing to major fluc­tu­a­tions which play a big fac­tor on the price of oil,” Ghedira said. ​“As I have said on sev­eral occa­sions, you begin to see the effects on the olive tree, a plant that is nor­mally very resis­tant.”

However, Ghedira also touted the olive tree as a plant that may help mit­i­gate some of the effects of cli­mate change, includ­ing seques­ter­ing car­bon diox­ide as well as pre­vent­ing ero­sion and deser­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“We have cal­cu­lated that pro­duc­ing one kilo­gram (2.2 pounds) of olive oil absorbs the equiv­a­lent amount of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions of a car con­sum­ing 10 liters (2.6 gal­lons) of fuel,” he said. ​“This means that every olive tree helps limit the neg­a­tive effects of cli­mate change, by absorb­ing more atmos­pheric car­bon diox­ide than it pro­duces.”

Through large-scale coop­er­a­tion, Ghedira and Jaime Lillo, the deputy direc­tor of the IOC, see olive cul­ti­va­tion and oil pro­duc­tion not only as an envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able indus­try, but one that can be eco­nom­i­cally and socially sus­tain­able as well.

“The olive tree is a sus­tain­able crop, which has a dimen­sion of social sus­tain­abil­ity, and forms the basis of the econ­omy of sev­eral coun­tries,” Lillo told Olive Oil Times. ​“We are also work­ing on how to use the byprod­ucts gen­er­ated by the olive oil extrac­tion, and there­fore we pro­mote the use of resources and the cre­ation of con­struc­tive rela­tion­ships, toward a cir­cu­lar and green econ­omy.”

In order to cre­ate a sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar econ­omy, the IOC needs buy in from all major olive grow­ing and oil pro­duc­ing nations, Ghedira said. It is this need for global coop­er­a­tion, which is why the orga­ni­za­tion is open to re-admit­ting pariah states, such as Syria.

“The IOC is a tech­ni­cal orga­ni­za­tion, with no polit­i­cal over­tones,” Ghedira said. ​“We think that all coun­tries that pro­duce and con­sume olive oil should be mem­bers of our orga­ni­za­tion. We need them and their farm­ers, just like they need us, because we can ben­e­fit from each other’s knowl­edge and hold an exchange of views.”

“Syria should apply, as it is an impor­tant pro­ducer which pre­vi­ously pro­duced six per­cent of world out­put,” he added. ​“They asked to join us, and, as we said in Argentina, they are wel­come. Yet, since they have left the IOC and have a finan­cial debt to the orga­ni­za­tion, we are dis­cussing how they can pay it, in order to present their dossier to the IOC.”

Ghedira also wel­comed the increased involve­ment of tra­di­tion­ally less active IOC mem­bers, such as Libya.

“Libya is a found­ing mem­ber of the IOC, and one of the first coun­tries to believe in this orga­ni­za­tion,” he said. ​“Economic devel­op­ment is essen­tial for it in order to reach eco­nomic and, there­fore, over­all sta­bil­ity. For Libya, the olive sec­tor could be an impor­tant part of this ben­e­fi­cial process.”

Ghedira also pointed out that olives and olive oil have deep cul­tural roots in the North African nation and this cul­tural her­itage com­bined with improved olive oil pro­duc­tion and analy­sis tech­niques could help boost the country’s inter­na­tional olive oil pro­file.

“As Libya asked us to become an active mem­ber, we sent experts on the ground, who explained that the key to the devel­op­ment of the olive oil sec­tor is the cre­ation of lab­o­ra­to­ries to ana­lyze the qual­ity of oils,” he said.

“They have agreed and are work­ing on this in order to improve the qual­ity of their pro­duc­tion,” Ghedira added. ​“I am glad about that, because I think that pro­duc­ing table olives and olive oil is not only a mat­ter of eco­nomic power but also a mat­ter of love, knowl­edge and field work.”

Ghedira went on to com­mend the grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries that are express­ing inter­est in olive oil and table olive pro­duc­tion. He said that it is encour­ag­ing to see coun­tries, such as Namibia, China, Japan, Palestine, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia express inter­est in join­ing the IOC.

He specif­i­cally praised Iran, Georgia and Albania, all of which are in the process of acces­sion to the inter­gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion.

“We are glad that these coun­tries want to join us, as they also believe in the sense of togeth­er­ness of olive oil, when it comes to talk about qual­ity and find solu­tions to prob­lems,” Ghedira said. ​“Considering that 95 per­cent of the world pro­duc­tion is made by our mem­bers, and 75 per­cent of con­sumers come from our mem­ber coun­tries, we can say that the IOC truly rep­re­sents the world olive oil.”

However, cel­e­brat­ing the IOC’s six­ti­eth anniver­sary was not just a moment to look back at how far the orga­ni­za­tion has come, but to also look ahead at the chal­lenges it, and global olive oil pro­duc­ers, are fac­ing.

“Olive oil rep­re­sents barely three per­cent of the fat con­sumed in the world, it is a lit­tle gem,” Ghedira said. ​“For this rea­son all those who make it with­out pay­ing atten­tion to qual­ity hurt the indus­try, all those who fail to make a good olive oil dam­age the sec­tor.”

“Now, our role is to encour­age the cre­ation of lab­o­ra­to­ries to adapt to inter­na­tional stan­dards and increase qual­ity, and we are glad to see that all the coun­tries are work­ing on that, by set­ting up more labs aimed at qual­ity,” he added.

Improving qual­ity was a con­sis­tent theme through­out Ghedira’s con­ver­sa­tion with Olive Oil Times. For him, this empha­sis on qual­ity is not only prac­ti­cal, but also hits close to home and his own expe­ri­ences with olive oil.

“I was born a farmer, and I would like to share with you some­thing that you well know: the plea­sure of see­ing a farmer who lets you taste his olive oil and eagerly waits for you to tell him what you think, because that is the result of very hard work,” he said. ​“The impor­tant thing is the love for the prod­uct.”

“I insist that we should not con­fuse olive oil with the other oils: those who con­sume qual­ity olive oil or encour­age the con­sump­tion of qual­ity olive oil help the Earth fight the cli­mate change,” he added. ​“And I insist that the most impor­tant thing is the qual­ity of olive oil.”

Lillo, the deputy direc­tor, widely agreed with Ghedira. He believes that the IOC up until this point has been suc­cess­ful in ful­fill­ing all of these roles within the inter­na­tional olive oil com­mu­nity. He said that the best way for the IOC to look ahead to the next 60 years is to con­tinue with this work.

“We spread the best prac­tices to help farm­ers to have the best olive oils, improv­ing the sus­tain­abil­ity of pro­duc­tion, and we think this is the only and best way to look to the future,” he said.