Olive Oil Production Expected to Decrease Significantly in Spain

Spain’s total olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to decrease by 44 per­cent in the 2019/20 crop year, accord­ing to an esti­mate by Andalusia’s Olive Oil Sector Council of Agri-food Cooperatives.

At a meet­ing in Jaén, the coali­tion of olive oil pro­duc­ing coop­er­a­tives said that pro­duc­tion was likely to be around one mil­lion tons, which would be the low­est yield since 2014/15.

Last year, Spain pro­duced 1.77 mil­lion tons, a record high, accord­ing to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

“All signs point to a smaller crop, mainly dimin­ished by the lack of rain­fall,” Luis Carlos Valero, a spokesman for Jaén’s Association of Young Farmers and Ranchers (Asaja), said after the meet­ing.

The Olive Oil Sector Council blamed the hot and dry spring for the larger-than-expected pro­duc­tion decrease but did say that this could change depend­ing on the weather for the rest of the sum­mer and autumn.

The province of Toledo, which sits just south­west of Madrid, is pre­dicted to be hit espe­cially hard with an esti­mated 80 per­cent decrease in pro­duc­tion. Overall, the regions of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha, which are gen­er­ally the sec­ond- and third-largest pro­duc­ing regions in Spain, are also expected to expe­ri­ence siz­able pro­duc­tion decreases this year.

Andalusia – the largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region in Spain by a wide mar­gin – is expected to expe­ri­ence a decline of about 48 per­cent. Producers expect to yield about 760,000 tons of olive oil, down from 1.56 mil­lion tons last year.

These pre­dic­tions largely match ones made by Andalusia’s Coordinator of Agriculture and Livestock Organizations (COAG) in June, which pre­dicted a pro­duc­tion decrease of about 50 per­cent.

At the time, sev­eral experts told Olive Oil Times that pro­duc­ers would have to wait until the autumn to more accu­rately esti­mate their yields.

According to Accuweather, the rest of the Spanish sum­mer, as well as the begin­ning of autumn, are pre­dicted to be hot and dry. However, this may change in October as wet air from the Atlantic arrives on the Iberian Peninsula, lead­ing to unusu­ally large amounts of rain.

Neither of these fore­casts is expected to change the pro­duc­tion esti­mates too much – olives tend to ben­e­fit from long and hot sum­mers – but the qual­ity of the oil could be diluted if too much rain falls right before the olives are har­vested.

Farmers inter­viewed by Olive Oil Times in June said they were not con­cerned about a poten­tial drop in qual­ity yet and would wait to see how the weather turned out.

While the offi­cials from the Olive Oil Sector Council dis­cussed the com­ing har­vest, Spain’s Food Chain Information Agency (AICA) announced good news from the pre­vi­ous one; 140,000 tons of Spanish olive oil were sold domes­ti­cally and exported last month.

“It is the best mar­ket­ing fig­ure for the year and the sec­ond-largest for a month of July of the last six cam­paigns,” Carlos Valero said.

This news comes as a wel­come relief for pro­duc­ers as it means domes­tic con­sump­tion is con­tin­u­ing to creep up and exports remained strong, in spite of trade ten­sions between the European Union and the United States, which is one of the largest mar­kets for Spanish olive oil.

• Andalusia’s Olive Oil Sector Council of Agri-food Cooperatives


• Asaja Jaén


• Accuweather