Herzegovina's Olive Growers Celebrate a Year of Triumphs

Olive grow­ers in Herzegovina, the south­ern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will remem­ber 2024 for its excep­tional achieve­ments. 

“We can even say it was his­toric for our olive and olive oil pro­duc­tion,” said Marko Ivanković, the Federal Agro-Mediterranean Institute (FZP) direc­tor in Mostar, Herzegovina’s largest city.

Producers and offi­cials in Herzegovina hailed sev­eral sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments, includ­ing estab­lish­ing the Zlatne Kapi Protected Designation of Origin by the country’s Institute of Intellectual Property and Food Safety Agency. 

On November 20^th, the day before World Olive Day, the coun­try was also wel­comed as the 21^st International Olive Council (IOC) mem­ber.

“For Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a can­di­date coun­try for acces­sion to the European Union, mem­ber­ship in the IOC implies har­mo­niza­tion of domes­tic reg­u­la­tions with the E.U. acquis [total body of law] in this area, which will ben­e­fit both pro­duc­ers and con­sumers of olive oil,” said Vesna Andree Zaimović, ambas­sador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Spain.

“As an impor­tant step in the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able and respon­si­ble olive grow­ing, join­ing the IOC means encour­ag­ing pro­duc­ers with the pos­si­bil­ity of expert sup­port, access to grants, bet­ter net­work­ing and access to a wider mar­ket,” she added.

Zaimović also par­tic­i­pated in the flag-rais­ing cer­e­mony of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a new mem­ber at the IOC’s Madrid head­quar­ters.

The cer­e­mony was held as part of the council’s 120^th ple­nary ses­sion, hosted by IOC exec­u­tive direc­tor Jaime Lillo and super­vised by the lead­er­ship of this orga­ni­za­tion, heads of attachés of mem­ber coun­tries and other par­tic­i­pants of the ple­nary ses­sion, and diplo­matic staff from the embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Madrid.

Zaimović also par­tic­i­pated in the ses­sion, deliv­er­ing a speech in which she empha­sized the numer­ous advan­tages the IOC mem­ber­ship will bring to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s pro­duc­ers and con­sumers.

She said the coun­try is proud of its diver­sity, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, and cen­turies-long coex­is­tence between dif­fer­ent peo­ples (Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks) and reli­gions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam). 

She also empha­sized that the coun­try is char­ac­ter­ized by nat­ural resources and bio­di­ver­sity con­ducive to cul­ti­vat­ing var­i­ous crops.

“What we are par­tic­u­larly proud of are the peo­ple, widely known for their hos­pi­tal­ity and open doors to every­one,” Zaimović said. ​“That is why we are very pleased to cel­e­brate our entry into the world fam­ily of olive grow­ers and the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of the olive tree, which, among other things, also car­ries the sym­bol­ism of peace.” 

Along with the national approval of the PDO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and the Olive Council’s ascen­sion, Herzegovina pro­duc­ers will remem­ber 2024 for the record olive har­vest and high olive oil qual­ity.

“The olive trees have pro­duced well this year, but the oil yields are slightly lower than in pre­vi­ous years due to the drought in July and August and the rains in September and October, amount­ing to ten to 12 per­cent,” said Ivanković.

Production is esti­mated at around 400,000 liters, and pro­duc­ers are also pleased with the qual­ity, as con­firmed by the FZP’s chem­i­cal analy­ses and the organolep­tic eval­u­a­tion panel.

Sixty per­cent of the 243 sam­ples ana­lyzed had at least 250 mil­ligrams of polyphe­nols per liter, which means they meet E.U. Regulation 432/2012 on med­i­c­i­nal claims for olive oils.

“Oils with more polyphe­nols also have more health prop­er­ties,” Ivanković said.

He explained how the rise of Herzegovina’s olive grow­ing took place. The tra­di­tion dates back to Roman times, as evi­denced by the remains of an ancient mill in the Villa Rustica Mogorjelo near the town of Čapljina. 

Toponyms (names derived from places) also tes­tify to the pres­ence of olives, such as the set­tle­ment of Masline, also the Croat word for olive. Still, orga­nized cul­ti­va­tion only began about 15 years ago. 

Since then, 140,000 olive trees have been planted on 520 hectares, greatly expand­ing the coun­try’s 6,000 olive trees.

Herzegovina now has seven mills. In addi­tion to con­stantly improv­ing olive oil qual­ity, one of the strate­gic goals is to plant 1,000 hectares of olive trees and pro­duce one mil­lion liters of extra vir­gin olive oil.

For its part, the FZP has helped orga­nize olive farm­ers. Ivanković helped estab­lish the Herzegovina Association of Oil and Olive Growers (HUUM) four years ago, with more than 95 mem­bers.

The FZP also helped orga­nize local events about olives and olive oil to edu­cate con­sumers about the Mediterranean diet and olive oil’s health ben­e­fits.

“The suc­cesses men­tioned in the past year mark the com­ple­tion of a major stage in the over­all devel­op­ment of this branch of the econ­omy,” Ivanković said. 

Ivanković said the E.U. appli­ca­tion for the Zlatne Kapi PDO will be pre­sented to Brussels in 2025.

“I am very proud to point out that Herzegovina’s extra vir­gin olive oil has received the Protected Designation of Origin, rep­re­sent­ing a his­toric moment for our region and olive grow­ing,” said Dajana Dujmović, a mem­ber of HUUM’s board of direc­tors. ​“We are espe­cially proud of the Zlatne Kapi PDO qual­ity stamp, which fur­ther con­firms the qual­ity and authen­tic­ity of our prod­uct.”

“Whoever receives a stamp branded as Zlatne Kapi PDO this year will have proof to all con­sumers and buy­ers that they are receiv­ing healthy olive oil in Herzegovina,” added Ramiz Zajmović, a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors and co-owner of Agroherc Organic Agriculture. 

“There are vir­gin, extra vir­gin and Herzegovina oil, with Herzegovina olive oil being the high­est level the prod­uct can reach,” he joked. 

HUUM is also devel­op­ing plans for an olive oil road project designed as a direct sales chan­nel for olive oils and other local prod­ucts. 

Ivanković added that the sec­tor must pro­mote olive oil qual­ity to increase con­sump­tion, which cur­rently stands at 0.40 liters per capita. 

He argued that this could be done by qua­dru­pling the amount of land ded­i­cated to olive grow­ing and sup­port­ing young farm­ers to encour­age them to invest in agri­cul­tural busi­nesses.

Many of the country’s lead­ing olive grow­ers announced they would par­tic­i­pate in the 2025 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. 

In 2023, Herzegovina pro­duc­ers received a record four awards from five entries to the com­pe­ti­tion. Last year, only one pro­ducer sub­mit­ted a sam­ple and earned an award. Since 2018, Herzegovnian pro­duc­ers have com­bined to earn 11 awards from 12 entries.