Inclement Weather Dampens Argentina Olive Harvest, But Quality Remains High

Argentina’s olive har­vest is expected to be slightly lower than in pre­vi­ous years fol­low­ing bad weather impact­ing the indus­try.

Intermittent episodes of frost, hail, intense rain­fall and floods led the Ministry of Agriculture to declare a state of emer­gency and agri­cul­tural dis­as­ter across the olive-grove-rich province of San Juan.

In a state­ment, the min­istry specif­i­cally men­tion­ing the dam­age done to olive grow­ers, along with vine­yards and other fruit orchards.

These dec­la­ra­tions fol­lowed a May 17^thstate­ment in which a 180-day state of emer­gency and agri­cul­tural dis­as­ter was declared, ​“for rea­sons of late frosts and extreme tem­per­a­tures for the olive-grow­ing activ­ity of Catamarca.”

The impact on the indus­try and this year’s out­put is likely to be severe, with one expert fore­cast­ing a dou­ble-digit fall.

Andrés Boscovich, an ana­lyst with IES Consultores, told Olive Oil Times that the total olive har­vest is expected to be about 16-per­cent lower than in the pre­vi­ous cam­paign.

“In 2020/21 cam­paign is expected to reach 80,000 tons for table olives and 27,000 tons for olive oils, both with a decrease from the pre­vi­ous cam­paign,” he said.

The Argentina Olive Federation pre­dicts that the har­vest will be closer to 30,000 tons of olive oil, roughly the same amount pro­duced in 2020.

While pro­duc­tion in Argentina remains more or less steady and seems far from sur­pass­ing the record-highs of 2018, improv­ing eco­nom­ics is a major con­so­la­tion for pro­duc­ers.

While vol­umes are down, olive oil prices are at least sta­ble with a slight rise – helped by the deci­sion of the Argentinian gov­ern­ment to drop export taxes which has helped make the prod­uct cost-effec­tive.

“The 2020 export price has been low, but in the cur­rent year, it went up six per­cent in the first quar­ter,” Boscovich said.

According to the Argentina Olive Federation, high export duties and other pro­duc­tion costs severely limit the sector’s poten­tial. If these bur­dens were reduced, Argentina could pro­duce twice as much olive oil, the fed­er­a­tion believes.

Producers in the field have largely sup­ported the broader view on the sec­tor taken by ana­lysts, with one grower telling Olive Oil Times that quan­tity was down, but the qual­ity was ​”very good.”

This was cor­rob­o­rated by another pro­ducer who paid trib­ute to the industry’s abil­ity to get the har­vest despite the com­pli­ca­tions cre­ated by the Covid-19 pan­demic.

“It was undoubt­edly a dif­fi­cult har­vest due to the effects of Covid-19,” Maria Gabriela Panelli, the com­mer­cial man­ager of Olivum, told Olive Oil Times. ​“However, we are already in the last days, proud to have gone through it tak­ing care of our peo­ple. Argentina expects a good har­vest, and very good gen­eral qual­ity of its oils already char­ac­ter­izes us.”

“We had to quickly adapt to new and var­ied pro­to­cols to move for­ward with the har­vest and pro­duc­tion of the oils, as well as estab­lish pro­to­cols for the cir­cu­la­tion of trucks with fruit, processed prod­ucts and to con­tinue export­ing,” Panelli added.

Harvests have been volatile in recent years, aver­ag­ing 91,000 tons of olives har­vested from 2016 to 2021, Boscovich pointed out. Climate con­di­tions, which heav­ily deter­mine the result of the har­vest, are the main rea­son for volatil­ity, along with prices.

“The present har­vest is likely to fin­ish in September 2021,” Boscovich said, adding it would be ​“dif­fi­cult,” but part of a global pat­tern of declin­ing world pro­duc­tion from the pre­vi­ous year.

Despite poor har­vests across much of the Mediterranean, a rel­a­tively good year in Spain in 2020 may also dampen the out­look for Argentian pro­duc­ers look­ing to sell their oils abroad.

“In 2020, Spain bought a lot of olive prod­ucts because of the cri­sis that the olive sec­tor expe­ri­enced in that coun­try,” Boscovich said. ​“In the cur­rent cam­paign, [we] are not expect­ing sales to Spain, and it is dif­fi­cult to open new trade mar­kets on this year.”

As a result of this sta­sis, Argentina’s export mar­kets for both table olives and olive oil are likely to remain unchanged and go to neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, such as Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, along with the United States.

Among the chal­lenges that pro­duc­ers who seek to export their prod­ucts face this year is the ongo­ing need to invest in trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, which the pan­demic has exac­er­bated.

“The global prob­lems of mar­itime and air trans­port affect both the import of goods and spare parts and the export of oils,” Panelli said. ​“Let’s hope the end of the pan­demic is approach­ing.”

Boscovich added that another worry for pro­duc­ers is increas­ing com­pe­ti­tion from Chile, which con­tin­ues to have con­sis­tent and high-qual­ity har­vests over the pre­vi­ous few years and is get­ting increas­ing recog­ni­tion on the world stage.