Global Olive Oil Production Will Reach 4.4M Tons by 2050, Expert Projects

For nearly two decades, Juan Vilar has stud­ied the evo­lu­tion of global olive oil pro­duc­tion. His lat­est project has involved col­lect­ing data from all 66 olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries and mak­ing pro­jec­tions into the sector’s future.

The founder and CEO of Juan Vilar Strategic Consultants and pro­fes­sor at the University of Jaén told Olive Oil Times that he expects a steady tran­si­tion from tra­di­tional groves to high-den­sity and super-high-den­sity (also known as inten­sive and super-inten­sive) groves, espe­cially as olive grow­ing expands north­ward.

“The trend is that the area of​olive groves with a high slope and mod­er­ate slope in dry land is reduced and the area of​mod­ern olive groves increases, espe­cially the mod­ern olive grove in the crown and irri­gated hedges,” he said.

“It is expected that the olive grove area will go from 11,594,986 hectares, at present, to 15,259,471 hectares by 2050,” Vilar added. ​“That is, in 30 years, the pro­jec­tion of the olive grove area is expected to increase by 32 per­cent com­pared with 2021.”

“In the year 2041, the world’s olive grove sur­face area will be 14.1 mil­lion hectares, of which 39 per­cent is tra­di­tional olive groves, com­pared to 7.1 mil­lion in 1991, of which 92 per­cent were tra­di­tional,” he con­tin­ued. ​“And it is esti­mated that by the year 2041, there will be 80 olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries, ris­ing from 26 in 1991.”

“All this is eas­ily pro­jected when you have the trend of the evo­lu­tion in the com­po­si­tion of the olive grove and typol­ogy of the 66 cur­rent pro­duc­ing coun­tries over the last 40 years, and the cur­rent trans­for­ma­tion and plan­ta­tion data are known,” Vilar said. ​“The rest is done by math­e­mat­i­cal analy­sis, tak­ing into account the cycli­cal biases of the mar­ket, which also existed pre­vi­ously.”

Based on his pro­jec­tions, Vilar said that cli­mate change will have two pro­found impacts on the future of olive cul­ti­va­tion.

Future water avail­abil­ity will force pro­duc­ers to become more effi­cient and respon­si­ble in plant­ing and irri­gat­ing their groves. Changing weather pat­terns across the world will also con­di­tion how olive oil pro­duc­tion evolves in the Mediterranean basin.

“Indeed, cli­mate change will act as a neg­a­tive cat­a­lyst in one area and as a pos­i­tive impulse in oth­ers,” Vilar said. ​“All this will depend on whether it is a coun­try with a hot and dry cli­mate or a wet and cold cli­mate.”

“We bear in mind that the olive tree is already grown in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom,” he added. ​“This was unthink­able 10 years ago. Without a doubt, almost 15 new pro­duc­ing coun­tries will debut in just 20 years.”

Vilar pre­dicts that most new olive groves planted, whether in tra­di­tional olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries or new ones, will be high-den­sity and super-high-den­sity, which will result in a mas­sive increase in global olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Currently, tra­di­tional olive groves account for 68 per­cent of olive grove sur­face area and high-den­sity and super-high-den­sity olive groves account for the other 32 per­cent.

However, Vilar believes these fig­ures will more or less have flipped by the mid-point of the cen­tury when an esti­mated 15.3 mil­lion hectares of farm­land will be ded­i­cated to olive grow­ing.

“Of the total sur­face area, 40 per­cent – 5.5 mil­lion hectares – would be tra­di­tional non-trans­formable olive groves, which would pro­duce 23 per­cent of all the oil gen­er­ated by then on the planet,” he said.

“The remain­ing 60 per­cent of sur­face area, occu­pied by mod­ern olive groves (mainly in hedges), would be respon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing 77 per­cent of the 4.4 mil­lion sta­ble tons that will be pro­duced at that time, with a full nom­i­nal capac­ity of 5.8 mil­lion tons, as well as a higher pro­por­tion of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil,” he added. ​“There will be a greater vari­etal spe­cial­iza­tion.”

Currently, global olive oil pro­duc­tion is about 3.12 mil­lion tons each year, with the high­est total of 3.38 mil­lion tons pro­duced in the 2017/18 crop year.

Production will steadily increase because most of the olive groves in the 14 new olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries are expected to be planted in high-den­sity or super-high-den­sity. Many tra­di­tional olive oil pro­duc­ers will also tran­si­tion to higher-den­sity plan­ta­tions.

“Some coun­tries that will expe­ri­ence a shift from tra­di­tional olive groves to a higher per­cent­age of inten­sive olive groves and hedgerows will be Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey,” Vilar said.

Despite this tran­si­tion, the con­cen­tra­tion of olive groves is expected to be a bit more spread out in the future. However, Vilar said that tra­di­tional olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­tries do not need to worry about being out­com­peted by new­com­ers any­time soon.

Currently, 87 per­cent of the world’s olive groves are located in nine Mediterranean coun­tries. However, this fig­ure will decrease as cli­mate change causes new areas to become increas­ingly apt for olive grow­ing and oth­ers to become less so.

“Let us bear in mind that a 32-per­cent pos­i­tive evo­lu­tion of the sur­face area is expected in the next 30 years,” Vilar said.

“Without a doubt, in those 80 pro­duc­ing coun­tries, only 10 will con­tinue to hold more than 70 per­cent of the total sur­face,” he con­cluded. ​“The incor­po­ra­tion of new pro­duc­ers will boost con­sump­tion out of famil­iar­ity, but in no case will they pose a threat to those olive groves.”