Jordan Braces for Disappointing Harvest Amid Low Oil Yields

Despite initial hopes for a larger harvest, Jordan now predicts olive production will reach 26,000 metric tons this year, a reduction of 4,000 tons.
The Al-Maida estate in the central desert region of Jordan
By Paolo DeAndreis
Nov. 12, 2024 17:32 UTC

Lower-than-expected olive milling yields are affect­ing olive oil pro­duc­tion vol­umes in Jordan.

According to the lat­est esti­mates by the Ministry of Agriculture, around 143,000 tons of olives har­vested in the coun­try will be used to pro­duce olive oil this sea­son.

Ayman Al-Oran, the min­istry’s assis­tant sec­re­tary-gen­eral of plant resources, said olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to sur­pass 26,000 met­ric tons, align­ing with the five-year aver­age of 27,000 tons.

See Also:Farmers and Officials in Jordan Work to Protect Millennial Olive Trees

These pro­jec­tions revise the more opti­mistic esti­mates recently sug­gested by Minister of Agriculture Khaled Al-Hanifat, who indi­cated that pro­duc­tion could reach 30,000 tons in the 2024/25 crop year.

However, farm­ers in cer­tain regions report low con­ver­sion yields, mean­ing the quan­tity of olive oil extracted from the fruit is falling short of expec­ta­tions.

Mahmoud Al-Auran, the direc­tor of the Jordanian Farmers Union, attrib­uted part of this issue to cli­mate change. Average tem­per­a­tures have con­sis­tently been above nor­mal, affect­ing oil accu­mu­la­tion.

Despite these chal­lenges, not all areas of Jordan were impacted.

Yield and qual­ity are both good this year,” said Amelia Bilbeisi, co-founder of the award-win­ning olive oil pro­ducer Al-Maida.

Most grow­ers in Jordan did not face the extreme weather events that hit other parts of the Mediterranean basin.

The weather went as expected,” Bilbeisi said. Preparations were on track for har­vest­ing,” she added.

The pres­ence of the olive fruit fly was also less sig­nif­i­cant com­pared to other sea­sons.

In some areas of Jordan, we saw farms affected by dis­ease dur­ing the sea­son, but we were not impacted,” Bilbeisi said.

In Jerash gov­er­norate, one of the country’s key olive oil-pro­duc­ing regions, mills have been oper­at­ing at total capac­ity for sev­eral weeks.

Fayez Al-Khalayleh, the direc­tor of agri­cul­ture in Jerash, noted that some farm­ers started har­vest­ing early, while oth­ers waited for more rain.”

Authorities have encour­aged farm­ers to delay their har­vest to improve oil yields.

However, they have also issued warn­ings to con­sumers about coun­ter­feit olive oil.

Given the high prices of gen­uine olive oil, fraud­u­lent prod­ucts may be sold, which may con­tain lit­tle or no actual olive oil and could include harm­ful sub­stances.

Authorities believe that much of this coun­ter­feit­ing tar­gets con­sumers who lack suf­fi­cient knowl­edge about the prod­uct.

Mahmoud Al-Omari, spokesper­son for the Association of Olive Oil Millers and Producers, indi­cated that a ten per­cent increase in over­all olive pro­duc­tion com­pared to last sea­son is still antic­i­pated.

Nevertheless, the asso­ci­a­tion cau­tioned that delay­ing the har­vest could neg­a­tively impact the qual­ity of the oil.

Bilbeisi also noted some pres­sure on high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers like Al-Maida. Having won pre­vi­ously in the NYIOOC does add pres­sure on us as pro­duc­ers, but I believe it’s pos­i­tive. Quality is always our pri­or­ity, guid­ing us toward achiev­ing con­sis­tency,” she said.

The olive har­vest in most regions of Jordan is expected to con­clude within the first two to three weeks of December.



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