`Spain Expects Stronger Olive Oil Season - Olive Oil Times

Spain Expects Stronger Olive Oil Season

By Julie Butler
Sep. 19, 2013 12:19 UTC

Early esti­mates sug­gest Spain is set for a return to higher olive oil pro­duc­tion in 2013/13 with a har­vest of well over a mil­lion tons.

After a slump to just under 615,000 this sea­son — down 62 per­cent on the pre­vi­ous one — Carlos Cabanas. direc­tor gen­eral of Production and Agricultural Markets in the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, said this week the com­ing har­vest stood to be a more nor­mal” one and in the realm of 1.2 mil­lion tons.

Meanwhile, the regional gov­ern­ment of Andalusia doesn’t usu­ally release its fore­cast until late in October but its Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, Elena Víboras, said this har­vest was in line to be a big one, though she didn’t release any fig­ures.

And the Spanish Association of Municipalities of the Olive Tree (AEMO) says the indi­ca­tions reach­ing it bode for a rel­a­tively good year, with no bumper crop but a medium-high har­vest.

Gregorio López, olive oil spokesman for COAG, one of Spain’s main farmer unions, said talk of about 1.2 mil­lion tons was rea­son­able but the real­ity could eas­ily be affected by cli­matic events.

Drought and late frost cursed the cur­rent sea­son — from October 2012 to the end of this month — but Spain had three bumper years before that, reach­ing a record of 1.6 mil­lion tons in 2011/12.



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