Andalusia Seeks to Make Olive Production More Profitable With Tourism Initiative

The regional gov­ern­ment of Andalusia, Spain’s largest olive grow­ing region, is part­ner­ing with rural devel­op­ment groups to pro­mote the growth of olive oil tourism in a push to diver­sify the local econ­omy.

Tourism ini­tia­tives based around the cul­ture of olive grow­ing, such as guided vis­its to olive groves and mills as well as tast­ings and intro­duc­tions to local gas­tron­omy, will be among the projects to receive €1.4 mil­lion in fund­ing, the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development announced.

Though the south­ern Spanish region is the world’s largest pro­ducer and exporter of olive oil, it is fac­ing a decline in the num­ber of olive grow­ers due to a lack of prof­itabil­ity and demo­graphic shift away from rural areas to cities.

Some 22 per­cent of olive groves in the region are non-mech­a­niz­able, mean­ing they must be har­vested man­u­ally due to the steep incline of the land. This labo­ri­ous and expen­sive process has led to the aban­don­ment of more than 130,000 hectares of olive groves, accord­ing to a study from the Spanish Association of Olive Municipalities.

A sep­a­rate study from Deoleo found that another 500,000 hectares are at risk of the same fate over the next 10 years.

In response to the chal­lenges, the regional gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to diver­sify the eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able in the region by cre­at­ing ​“olive oil tourism expe­ri­ences.”

The recently announced pack­age will also include fund­ing for the pro­duc­tion of organic extra vir­gin olive oils, mea­sures to pro­tect bio­di­ver­sity and cli­mate change adap­ta­tion strate­gies as well as pro­mot­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of more young peo­ple and women in the sec­tor.

Another major boost to Andalusia’s olive oil tourism indus­try could be com­ing down the line if Spain suc­ceeds in get­ting its ​‘Sea of Olives’ land­scape added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The Spanish Ministry of Culture will sub­mit the can­di­dacy of the unique land­scape, com­posed of 66 mil­lion olive trees, cov­er­ing 590,000 hectares in 2022, with the final deci­sion in 2023.

• Europa Press
• El Mundo