French Olive Sector Calls 2016 Harvest 'Catastrophic'

“Catastrophique” is how the French olive grow­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion is describ­ing the most recent olive sea­son.

According to a report by AFIDOL (Association Française Interprofessionnelle de l’Olive), pre­sented at their gen­eral assem­bly on June 16, the most recent olive crop is expected to reach 3,200 to 3,400 tons, com­pared to 5,600 last year. This year’s yield amounts to the same quan­tity har­vested in 2000.

The report also revealed that between 2005 and 2010, yields came to 5,200 tons on aver­age, while from 2011 to 2016 there was a decrease of 20 per­cent to 4,000 tons. Furthermore, of an esti­mated area of 20,000 hectares of olive groves in France, an aver­age of 200 liters of oil is pro­duced per hectare — far behind the 800 to 1,000 liters pro­duced per hectare in Spain or Morocco.
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Climate change, olive fly infes­ta­tions, aging pro­duc­ers, and inef­fi­cient pro­duc­tion meth­ods are to blame for the decline. According to AFIDOL’s pres­i­dent, Olivier Nasles, pro­duc­tion meth­ods need to be re-exam­ined.

In his intro­duc­tion to the report, he asserted that things have changed and French olive grow­ers need to up their game: ​“The world is chang­ing, peo­ple are chang­ing, the cli­mate is chang­ing, and we’re not pre­pared.”

“It’s not just a case of plant­ing in order to pro­duce,” Nasles said, ​“you have to know how to pro­duce, and this savoir-faire has been par­tially lost. In 2014, pro­duc­tion went down because olive grow­ers did not fol­low our tech­ni­cian’s rec­om­men­da­tions with regard to treat­ment (against the olive fly). In 2016 (a year of drought), they failed to fol­low irri­ga­tion rec­om­men­da­tions.”

In order to move for­ward and face chal­lenges due to cli­mate change, he tried to drive the mes­sage home to mem­bers that it was time to change: ​“We have to move away from the atti­tude of ​‘we’ve always done things this way,’ ” he empha­sized.

“How can it be that for the past three years there isn’t one French tech­ni­cian who was able to tell us clearly why some pro­duc­ers are able to pro­duce 700 to 1,000 liters per year while the major­ity scrapes by with only 200 liters? Why has­n’t any French tech­ni­cian been able to pro­pose changes with regard to prun­ing, irri­ga­tion, and fer­til­iza­tion?”

In an inter­view with France Bleu, he evoked other rea­sons for a decline in pro­duc­tion and warned of France’s decline in com­pet­i­tive­ness com­pared to its olive-grow­ing neigh­bors: ​“We’re los­ing our savoir-faire because the younger gen­er­a­tion does not want to work like their par­ents and grand­par­ents did… We have to improve pro­duc­tiv­ity oth­er­wise Provence’s olive indus­try will dis­ap­pear… We are los­ing our com­pet­i­tive­ness com­pared to coun­tries where the olive indus­try is thriv­ing, like Spain, Portugal, Tunisia, Morocco.”

French olive oil expert and NYIOOC panel leader, Fabienne Roux echoed Nasles’ points. ​“Producers who must evolve in their pro­duc­tion tech­niques to achieve pro­duc­tiv­ity, which is the first indis­pens­able link in the eco­nomic prof­itabil­ity of the sec­tor,” Roux told Olive Oil Times. ​“An ama­teurism is very present in Provence…everyone impro­vises pro­duc­tion and milling. ​‘Ambassadors’ make you think that it is easy to make olive oil.”

“Well, no, it’s not sim­ple,” Roux said. ​“It is nec­es­sary to resume every­thing at the base and train a new gen­er­a­tion olive grow­ers, respon­si­ble and ambi­tious and pro­fes­sional. It must be done seri­ously and urgently. Nothing can be done with­out the com­mon will of the insti­tu­tions, the pub­lic author­i­ties and the pri­vate asso­ci­a­tions that work on a day-to-day basis.”

Indeed, French olive pro­duc­ers’ frus­tra­tion is exac­er­bated by the fact that other coun­tries have been able to increase pro­duc­tion in recent years. Compared to other olive-pro­duc­ing coun­tries, France has a tiny olive indus­try, with 65 per­cent of olive pro­duc­tion con­cen­trated in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

Last year, south­ern France expe­ri­ence a period of drought and part of the expected crop was lost as a result.

Equally ​“cat­a­strophique” are French olive oil prices which are expected to rise for house­holds to as much as €25 per liter.

• AFIDOL


• Radio France Internationale