Some Hope for Growers as Rain Falls in Andalusia

After months of antic­i­pa­tion, the rain finally came to Andalusia, the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region.

However, the light show­ers that fell across the south of Spain have not been enough to coun­ter­act the effects of the ongo­ing drought.

Local media reported that in Jaén, Andalusia’s most pro­lific olive-grow­ing province, high tem­per­a­tures and the strong sun emerged after nearly two weeks of rain in which less than 100 liters of water fell per square meter.

The moun­tain­ous east and west of the province report­edly received the most pre­cip­i­ta­tion, and Spain’s state mete­o­ro­log­i­cal agency, Aemet, expects a lit­tle more rain to fall in the com­ing weeks.

The pre­vail­ing wis­dom among mete­o­rol­o­gists and olive grow­ers is that at least a month of these rains would be needed to reach nor­mal lev­els in the hydro­log­i­cal year.

“The out­look for the exist­ing har­vest has been strength­ened at least tem­porar­ily by the rains, although they were insuf­fi­cient,” Juan Vilar, a strate­gic con­sul­tant based in Jaén, told Olive Oil Times.

He added that more rain is expected in June and fore­casted for the autumn, fur­ther improv­ing the har­vest out­look.

However, the effects of Spain’s dev­as­tat­ing drought have already taken their toll on the olive groves, and Vilar expects the har­vest will not fully recover from last year’s his­toric low.

According to data from Aemet, an aver­age of 371 mil­lime­ters of rain have fallen across Spain since the start of the hydro­log­i­cal year in October 2022, 27 per­cent lower than the aver­age amount of rain expected by Spain.

Most of south­ern and east­ern Spain, includ­ing three of the fourth largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing regions (Andalusia, Castille-La Mancha and Catalonia), has received less than 300 mil­lime­ters of rain in the hydro­log­i­cal year.

While olive trees can sur­vive on less than 200 mil­lime­ters of rain annu­ally, most olive trees for oil pro­duc­tion require between 400 and 1,000 mil­lime­ters annu­ally for opti­mal pro­duc­tiv­ity.

Rain has also not fallen evenly and has yet to sig­nif­i­cantly raise the lev­els of aquifers and reser­voirs, many of which still sit at his­toric lows.

According to data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge cited by the Jaén chap­ter of the Association of Young Farmers and Ranchers (Asaja), water reserves across Spain sits at slightly less than 50 per­cent of total capac­ity.

Despite the rain, water lev­els in the Guadalquivir basin, par­tially located in Andalusia, fell to 23.8 per­cent, a 0.2 per­cent decrease com­pared to the week before and sig­nif­i­cantly below last year’s lev­els and those of the 10-year aver­age.

Ministry data shows that 16 of Spain’s 17 water­shed areas are below the 10-year aver­age. Meanwhile, ten are at lower capac­ity than last year, with much of the reprieve com­ing for water­sheds in the coun­try’s north, which has a his­tor­i­cally wet­ter cli­mate.

Immediately after the rain­fall at the end of May, olive oil prices at ori­gin dipped slightly but have since returned to record highs, with pro­duc­tion expec­ta­tions for the 2023/24 crop year lower than the his­tor­i­cal aver­age would sug­gest they should be.

In its weekly report, Andalusia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development said that while many of the region’s olive groves are enter­ing fruit­set, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of groves of Picual trees in east­ern Jaén would not come to fruition after the flow­ers were lost.

The regional min­istry also reported that in groves where fruit set had taken place, farm­ers were see­ing notice­ably smaller olives, some ​“the size of a pin­head,” and con­cluded that ​“expec­ta­tions are not good,”, espe­cially in groves around Úbeda, Baeza and Mancha Real where ​“flow­er­ing has been bad.”

East of Jaén in the nearby province of Almería, Rafael Alonso Barrau, the com­mer­cial and export direc­tor of Oro del Desierto, said he received lit­tle reprieve from the rain.

He told Olive Oil Times that dry weather and high heat in April resulted in a low-qual­ity bloom in Almería. When the rain came in mid-May, it brought hail, and Alonso said this also dam­aged many of the trees.

“In the whole of Andalusia, the fore­casts are bad due to the pro­longed drought that has neg­a­tively affected flow­er­ing,” he said. ​“This clashes with news of bet­ter world fore­casts com­pared to last year.”

“I can say that Andalusia will once again have a rather low har­vest for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year,” Alonso con­cluded.

• Diario de Jaén
• Asaja Jaén
• Asaja Jaén