Moroccan Producers Face Third Straight Year of Declining Production

Morocco is fac­ing a sig­nif­i­cant decline in olive oil pro­duc­tion due to per­sis­tent drought and high tem­per­a­tures dur­ing the flow­er­ing period.

According to pre­lim­i­nary esti­mates from the International Olive Council, Morocco will pro­duce 90,000 met­ric tons of olive oil in the 2024/25 crop year, sig­nif­i­cantly below the five-year aver­age of 141,600 tons.

“Morocco is fac­ing a severe drought that has lasted for six years now,” a local farmer who declined to be iden­ti­fied told Olive Oil Times. ​“This pro­longed dry period has caused sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for our agri­cul­tural sec­tor, affect­ing crop yields and water avail­abil­ity.”

According to Rachid Benali, the Moroccan Interprofessional Olive Federation pres­i­dent, ​“var­i­ous cli­matic fluc­tu­a­tions” are respon­si­ble for the coun­try’s ongo­ing pro­duc­tion issues. ​“The prob­lem is not lim­ited to drought,” he told news agency Bladi.

Other pro­duc­ers in the coun­try con­firmed that high tem­per­a­tures also resulted in smaller olive yields than in pre­vi­ous years.

“The pro­duc­tion of a sin­gle olive tree com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year has decreased by about half, affect­ing the amount of oil extracted from these low har­vests,” Mustapha Jabri, the owner of a mill in cen­tral Morocco, told Belpresse.

The dras­tic pro­duc­tion decline has led to soar­ing local prices, which the Moroccan gov­ern­ment has addressed by sus­pend­ing import duties on extra vir­gin olive oil and intro­duc­ing export reg­u­la­tions through spe­cific licenses.

The min­istry fore­casted that prices could rise to 150 dirhams (€14) per liter, up from 90 to 100 dirhams (€8.60 to €9.55) at the start of the har­vest. Data ana­lyzed by Lloyds Bank showed that the aver­age monthly salary in Morocco is 1,793 dirhams (€171).

Local con­sumer pro­tec­tion groups are also con­cerned that ris­ing olive oil prices will attract more spec­u­la­tion.

“The inter­ven­tion of inter­me­di­aries before and after the har­vest, aimed at monop­o­liz­ing the mar­ket, has ampli­fied the rise in prices,” Bouazza Kherrati, pres­i­dent of the Moroccan Federation of Consumer Rights, told Hespress.

Meanwhile, Ali Chtour, the pres­i­dent of the Moroccan Association for the Defense of Consumer Rights, wor­ries that higher prices will increase olive oil fraud.

He called on the gov­ern­ment to increase con­trols on olive oil imports. ​“The cli­mate cri­sis must not become a pre­text for spec­u­la­tive prac­tices that harm cit­i­zens,” he told Agrimaroc.

According to the IOC, Morocco has con­sumed an aver­age of 148,000 tons of olive oil annu­ally in the last five years and is fore­casted to con­sume 140,000 tons in 2024/25.

As a result, the min­istry announced plans to allow 30,000 tons of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil imports in 2024 and 2025 to help sta­bi­lize prices, with ship­ments expected to come from Brazil, Italy, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.

Meanwhile, olive farm­ers are wor­ried that low pro­duc­tion could cause con­sumers to turn to olive oil alter­na­tives if there is a sig­nif­i­cant short­age. As a result, they wel­comed the announce­ment of more imports but lamented that the deci­sion had not been made sooner.

“The min­istry is tire­lessly work­ing to find solu­tions, imple­ment water-sav­ing tech­niques, and sup­port our farm­ers. But it’s an uphill bat­tle,” the local farmer added. ​“The stress is pal­pa­ble across the nation as we grap­ple with these unprece­dented con­di­tions and strive to ensure food secu­rity and sus­tain­able agri­cul­tural prac­tices.”

• SNRT News
• Belpresse
• Agrimaroc