Morocco’s Olive Harvest Races Ahead as Rain, Cold and Labor Shortages Tighten the Window

Summary

Growers in Morocco are fac­ing chal­lenges in fin­ish­ing the olive har­vest due to adverse weather con­di­tions and labor short­ages, lead­ing to a delayed start to the cam­paign. Despite record olive yields and high oil extrac­tion rates, the domes­tic mar­ket is expe­ri­enc­ing a sharp decline in olive oil prices as national out­put is pro­jected to dou­ble in the cur­rent sea­son com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

Growers across Morocco are rush­ing to fin­ish the olive har­vest as soon as pos­si­ble after weeks of adverse weather slowed work in the groves. Since the start of the cam­paign, pro­duc­ers have been report­ing chal­lenges with har­vest­ing in cold, wet con­di­tions.

The pres­sure has been com­pounded by a delayed start to the cam­paign, which began in November rather than October. Sector sources attrib­uted the shift to late rain­fall and cooler early autumn tem­per­a­tures that slowed fruit mat­u­ra­tion in key pro­duc­ing regions, prompt­ing many grow­ers to wait for opti­mal ripeness and oil accu­mu­la­tion.

At the same time, labor short­ages are ham­per­ing a timely har­vest in many areas. The strain is espe­cially evi­dent in what sources describe as an excep­tional cam­paign, both for the vol­ume of olives being col­lected and the oil yields achieved at the mill.

In Taounate, a province in north­ern Morocco’s Fès-Meknès region, the short­age of field work­ers is tak­ing a toll on local pro­duc­tion. Growers also lament that labor costs have risen two to three times com­pared with pre­vi­ous cam­paigns in an area known for exten­sive rain­fed groves and a heavy reliance on sea­sonal work­ers.

Rachid Benali, pres­i­dent of the Moroccan Olive Interprofessional Federation, con­firmed a surge in daily wages to around 200 dirhams (€18.5) in Taounate and other major pro­duc­ing regions, includ­ing Kalaat Sraghna and Ouezzane. ​“The har­vest sea­son has become very short. There is very strong pres­sure on labor demand (…) Everyone wants to har­vest at the same time,” Benali said.

After years of drought and high tem­per­a­tures linked to cli­mate change, grow­ers are now try­ing to pro­tect the crop hang­ing on the trees. Experts warn that fur­ther delays could affect pro­duc­tiv­ity in the com­ing sea­son, with flow­er­ing in some areas poten­tially begin­ning as early as late April.

Benali said the har­vest is usu­ally com­pleted by January, leav­ing time for trees to recover before a new pro­duc­tion cycle begins. A pro­longed cam­paign can reduce that rest period and com­pli­cate orchard man­age­ment ahead of the next sea­son.

Delays also raise the risk of fruit loss in strong winds and can increase vul­ner­a­bil­ity to pests. Weather-related dis­rup­tions are affect­ing other agri­cul­tural sec­tors, includ­ing straw­berry pro­duc­tion.

The record vol­ume of olives being har­vested is also reshap­ing olive oil prices in the domes­tic mar­ket. Compared with the begin­ning of last year, the approx­i­mate aver­age retail price for a liter of olive oil has fallen from about 120 dirhams to 50 to 60 dirhams, or from roughly €11 to €4.5 to €5.

The sharp decline has fol­lowed a steep drop in raw mate­r­ial costs. Olives are report­edly sell­ing at around five dirhams per kilo­gram at the farm gate (€0.46), down from 13 to 15 dirhams in 2024, while Agriculture Minister Ahmed El Bouari has said national out­put is pro­jected to dou­ble to about two mil­lion tons, up from less than 900,000 tons the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

In most regions, millers are report­ing high extrac­tion rates, with some oper­a­tions reach­ing yields of up to 20 per­cent, under­scor­ing strong per­for­mance at the olive oil milling stage.

According to the International Olive Council (IOC), Morocco’s 2025/2026 cam­paign is poised to end with 160,000 tons of olive oil, up from 90,000 tons in the pre­vi­ous sea­son. If real­ized, the rebound would mark the strongest result in sev­eral years after pro­duc­tion failed to exceed 107,000 tons in the prior three cam­paigns; between 2017/2018 and 2022/2023, Morocco aver­aged 167,000 tons a year.