Andalusian Producers Achieve Outstanding Quality After Disastrous Harvest

With the malaise of the 2022/23 crop year fully in the rearview mir­ror, grow­ers and pro­duc­ers across Andalusia reflected on the season’s chal­lenges and tri­umphs.

According to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­try expe­ri­enced its low­est yield since 2012/13, with a yield of 673,130 tons.

Meanwhile, Andalusia, the country’s most pro­lific pro­duc­ing region, expe­ri­enced a har­vest of just 510,725 tons.

“It has been a dif­fi­cult year, with a lot of heat dur­ing the [2022/23] har­vest the first few days and with adverse weather con­di­tions in gen­eral in Spain,” Rafael Alonso Barrau, the com­mer­cial and export direc­tor of Almería-based Oro del Desierto, told Olive Oil Times.

“Even so, we have been able to obtain great qual­ity that is also being rec­og­nized with inter­na­tional awards,” he added. ​“Every year is a new chal­lenge, and you have to face it as best as pos­si­ble to get the most out of what you have.”

Alonso Barrau was not alone in his analy­sis that olive oil qual­ity did not suf­fer as much as quan­tity. Growers and pro­duc­ers in Spain earned 106 awards from 135 entries at the 2023 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

While national pro­duc­tion reached its low­est point in the last decade, the award tally rep­re­sents Spain’s fourth high­est at the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tion, which has been held for over a decade. Unsurprisingly, pro­duc­ers from Andalusia took home the lion’s share of Spain’s awards.

For their part, the team behind Oro del Desierto earned two Gold Awards. Alonso Barrau said the com­pany had entered the NYIOOC every year since its incep­tion, adding that the com­pe­ti­tion is a barom­e­ter for qual­ity.

“Surely the con­sis­tency in the way of work­ing [explains our con­tin­ued suc­cess],” he said. ​“We have a method to pro­duce high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil and a com­mit­ment to our clien­tele; in the end, it is about know­ing the ter­ri­tory and the fruit and pro­duc­ing it in the best pos­si­ble con­di­tions.”

While the vast major­ity of Andalusia’s sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion decrease was attrib­uted to high heat in May 2022, which dam­aged many olive trees as they blos­somed and resulted in a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in fruit­set, drought was another chal­lenge that com­pli­cated the har­vest.

Located in the Tabernas Desert, fre­quently cited as Europe’s dri­est region, Alonso Barrau said Oro del Desierto had worked dili­gently over the years to mit­i­gate the impacts of drought and get the most out of the harsh and arid envi­ron­ment.

“Drought is a con­stant,” he con­firmed. ​“We are used to man­ag­ing prun­ing and soil to make effi­cient use of the lit­tle rain. We also use an under­ground deficit irri­ga­tion sys­tem to be able to pro­vide help with water resources at key moments in olive tree phe­nol­ogy.”

“We also use a weather sta­tion and real-time data to exe­cute a very effi­cient irri­ga­tion strat­egy with which we achieve har­vests in this hos­tile envi­ron­ment,” he added.

Slightly less than 200 kilo­me­ters west of the Tabernas Desert, the Almazaras de la Subbética olive groves in Córdoba did not fare much bet­ter.

It would be hard to tell that after the 8,000-member coop­er­a­tive earned three Gold Awards and a Silver Award at the 2023 NYIOOC.

“The main chal­lenge of the 2022/23 crop year was the lack of rain and the high tem­per­a­tures,” María Carmen Rodríguez Comino, the cooperative’s mar­ket­ing direc­tor, told Olive Oil Times.

“Although qual­ity oil has been obtained, it has been in less quan­tity than in other years,” she added. In raw num­bers, this year, we pro­duced just 40 per­cent of the pre­vi­ous cam­paign.”

Rodríguez attrib­uted the cooperative’s endur­ing suc­cess at the com­pe­ti­tion to the tech­ni­cal team that advises the mem­bers dur­ing every step of the process, from the grove to the mill.

“Receiving inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion is always a proud moment,” she said. ​“It means recog­ni­tion of our team’s hard work, espe­cially after a cam­paign as dif­fi­cult as this one.”

José Antonio López, the direc­tor of Cooperativa Olivarera Virgen De La Sierra De Cabra, also based in Córdoba, agreed that win­ning awards in New York is impor­tant for coop­er­a­tives, espe­cially as they begin to expand to inter­na­tional mar­kets.

The 70-year-old coop­er­a­tive, boast­ing over 1,000 mem­bers, earned two Gold Awards at the NYIOOC.

“Now that we are start­ing to sell out­side of Spain, it is a great pride to be awarded in New York,” Antonio López told Olive Oil Times.

He attrib­uted the coop­er­a­tive’s suc­cess at the com­pe­ti­tion to increased invest­ment in the farm­ing and milling processes and the coop­er­a­tive’s bet on organic cul­ti­va­tion.

However, Antonio López said the ongo­ing drought across south­ern Spain had been a chal­lenge, with an increased invest­ment required to receive lower pro­duc­tion vol­umes.

“This past year has been very com­plex due to the envi­ron­men­tal and drought con­di­tions that the farm­ers have faced,” he said. ​“This makes it dif­fi­cult both to extract an aver­age pro­duc­tion vol­ume and to guar­an­tee opti­mal qual­ity.”

“[To mit­i­gate these impacts,] we are train­ing farm­ers to raise aware­ness about the opti­miza­tion of resources to carry out the har­vest,” Antonio López added. ​“Our objec­tive is focused on con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide the same level of qual­ity to our cus­tomers.”

Sandwiched in between the Sierras Subbéticas and the Tabernas Desert are the goves of Almazara Quaryat Dillar. The Granadan pro­ducer earned its sixth award at the 2023 NYIOOC.

“Winning the Gold Award for our oil was a great joy as it cer­ti­fies that we are mov­ing in the right direc­tion to obtain an oil of the high­est qual­ity,” co-owner Antonio Velasco told Olive Oil Times. ​“It is a recog­ni­tion of all the work and effort of the team of peo­ple who make this com­pany pos­si­ble.”

He added that the fam­ily company’s team­work and ded­i­ca­tion to the com­mon objec­tive of qual­ity over quan­tity explains the producer’s sus­tained suc­cess in the com­pe­ti­tion, along with the unique ter­roir of Granada.

“Since we are a fam­ily busi­ness located in the Sierra Nevada Natural Park, our oils come from a high-alti­tude olive grove that delights us with unique aro­mas and fla­vors,” he said.

Due to the grove’s loca­tion in a nat­ural park, Velasco said his com­pany must focus on sus­tain­abil­ity and pro­duc­tion, which adds to costs. He added that Andalsuia’s ongo­ing drought and the moun­tain­ous topog­ra­phy also pre­sented numer­ous chal­lenges.

With the 2022/23 har­vest offi­cially con­cluded, pro­duc­ers in Andalusia are look­ing ahead to the next har­vest with trep­i­da­tion.

While some rain fell in Andalusia at the end of May and early June, pro­vid­ing minor relief, pro­duc­ers across the region con­firmed to Olive Oil Times that Andalusia would likely have another poor har­vest.

“Right now, in the month of June, we are hav­ing some rain that is reliev­ing the grove a lot, but unfor­tu­nately, the rain arrived late,” Rodríguez said. ​“The next cam­paign is also almost lost because, in the key months of olive tree flow­er­ing, which are April and May, we have had tem­per­a­tures of 40 ºC as if we were in the mid­dle of sum­mer.”

“The sit­u­a­tion is worse than last year,” she added. ​“Much of the crop has been lost due to the lack of rain­fall and high spring tem­per­a­tures.”

Velasco con­firmed that the view from Granada is not dis­sim­i­lar to that from Córdoba. ​“Currently, the olive grove is in worse con­di­tions than last year due to the drought,” he said.

In Almería, Alonso Barrau also con­firmed that the sit­u­a­tion is a bit worse than last year.

“The rain did­n’t come until mid-May when it did fall a lot, and the olive tree blos­somed strongly but with­out enough water and with too much heat at the end of April,” he said. ​“Then, at the begin­ning of June, there were storms with some hail, so the prospects in terms of quan­tity are not very good a pri­ori in Almería.”

“Likewise, in the whole of Andalusia, the fore­casts are bad due to the pro­longed drought that has neg­a­tively affected flow­er­ing,” Alonso Barrau added. ​“I can say that Andalusia will once again have a rather low har­vest for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year.”

In Córdoba, Antonio López has largely come to the same con­clu­sions as other Andalusian pro­duc­ers.

“After mak­ing sev­eral vis­its to the groves and speak­ing with farm­ers in the region, the sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar to last sea­son,” he said. ​“Although it has rained in June, the rains are late. It was also very hot in the mid­dle of the month of flow­er­ing [May], so the dam­age has already been done.”

“Now we have a long sum­mer ahead in which the olive tree has to resist high tem­per­a­tures,” Antonio López con­cluded. ​“The next crit­i­cal point will be next September and October; those rains will be cru­cial to deter­mine the final pro­duc­tion vol­ume.”