`Buenos Aires Province Sees Significant Growth in Olive Oil Production - Olive Oil Times
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Buenos Aires Province Sees Significant Growth in Olive Oil Production

By Ofeoritse Daibo
Aug. 19, 2024 17:21 UTC

Olive oil pro­duc­tion is ris­ing slowly but steadily in the province of Buenos Aires, fueled by new olive trees planted in the Coronel Dorrego dis­trict.

Olive trees were first planted in Coronel Dorrego about 50 years ago, 525 kilo­me­ters south of the national cap­i­tal. Since then, they have expanded to cover about 2,500 hectares and con­tribute about half of the province’s annual olive oil pro­duc­tion.

According to data from the Argentine Olive Federation (FOA), the province of Buenos Aires is respon­si­ble for two per­cent of national pro­duc­tion. About 96 per­cent of Argentine olive oil pro­duc­tion occurs in the west­ern regions of San Juan, La Rioja, Catamarca and Mendoza.

See Also:Potential of Major Changes in Argentina Provide Hope for Producers, Exporters

In an effort to expand olive cul­ti­va­tion in the area, local pro­duc­ers have been work­ing with the National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA) to find the best places in the dis­trict to plant more trees and develop a regional brand.

Despite its markedly dif­fer­ent cli­mate from the more arid and moun­tain­ous west­ern Argentina, José Massigoge, a researcher at INTA Barrow in Buenos Aires, told local media that soil and cli­mate con­di­tions are still amenable to olive farm­ing.

“For instance, the area around Dorrego, par­tic­u­larly near the coast, pos­sesses highly suit­able soils char­ac­ter­ized by sandy loam that offers excel­lent drainage – one of the essen­tial require­ments for the cul­ti­va­tion of olive trees,” he said. ​“While the olive tree is a resilient plant, it neces­si­tates proper drainage for its roots, a con­di­tion that is ade­quately met in this region.”

Producers said the ther­mal ampli­tude pro­motes the fruit’s grad­ual ripen­ing, which results in ele­vated lev­els of phe­nols and a high pro­por­tion of oleic acid.

Massigoge noted that ​“the cool tem­per­a­tures dur­ing the early har­vest con­tribute to the pres­ence of polyphe­nols and other essen­tial com­pounds, which impart bit­ter­ness to the oil. Additionally, this con­di­tion is advan­ta­geous for pre­serv­ing the oil, ensur­ing high lev­els of dura­bil­ity over time.”

Federico Bottini, a part­ner at Agroliva, added that the sig­nif­i­cant shift between day­time and night­time tem­per­a­tures yields olive oils with inter­est­ing organolep­tic qual­i­ties.

“Another notable dis­tinc­tion is the avail­abil­ity of water resources; the region receives approx­i­mately 600 mil­lime­ters of rain­fall annu­ally, which is con­sid­er­ably higher than that of the coun­try’s largest plan­ta­tion areas,” he said. ​“While irri­ga­tion is nec­es­sary in our region, it serves pri­mar­ily as a sup­ple­men­tary mea­sure. Furthermore, the cooler cli­mate dur­ing the har­vest sea­son pos­i­tively influ­ences the qual­ity indi­ca­tors of the pro­duce.”

“Although I do not pos­sess spe­cial­ized exper­tise in this field, I can attest that our oils con­sis­tently yield excel­lent results in both phys­i­cal-chem­i­cal and sen­sory eval­u­a­tions,” he added. ​“Consequently, we have con­sis­tently achieved favor­able out­comes in var­i­ous com­pe­ti­tions.”

Argentina remains a rel­a­tively mod­est extra vir­gin olive oil pro­ducer com­pared to the largest pro­duc­ers in the Mediterranean basin. According to International Olive Council data, the coun­try has yielded an aver­age of 31,800 tons per annum in the past five years, mak­ing it the largest pro­ducer out­side of the Mediterranean.

However, pro­duc­ers antic­i­pate a har­vest decline this year due to many groves enter­ing an ​‘off-year’ in the nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle, a lack of chill hours and extreme weather events.

Nevertheless, farm­ers con­tinue to plant new olive trees across the coun­try, espe­cially in San Juan and La Rioja, to meet ris­ing demand in the United States and Europe.

The first plan­ta­tions in Buenos Aires started in the late 1940s. At that time, mostly Picual and Arbequina trees were cul­ti­vated, and pro­duc­tion was car­ried out using tra­di­tional meth­ods.

However, con­tem­po­rary prac­tices in the region have evolved to incor­po­rate Arbosana and Koroneiki trees planted at high-den­sity olive groves, which fea­ture more than 2,000 olive trees per hectare.

Federico Hollender, the owner of Estilo Oliva in Coronel Dorrego, recalled adapt­ing to more mod­ern tech­nol­ogy.

“We decided to learn, adopt the lat­est tech­nolo­gies in this activ­ity and opt for the super-inten­sive sys­tem,” he said. ​“Then we started to plant more hectares with other vari­eties of olive trees, and we decided to con­tinue grow­ing.”

Producers are opti­mistic that olive cul­ti­va­tion will con­tinue to expand in the province of Buenos Aires and sup­port the launch of an inter­na­tional olive oil com­pe­ti­tion in the cap­i­tal city.

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