Uruguay to Host Conference on Olive Oil Sector Research, Innovation

An esti­mated 200 to 300 sci­en­tists, olive oil pro­duc­ers, ven­dors and offi­cials will gather in the Uruguayan cap­i­tal of Montevideo in November for the sec­ond annual Latin American Olive Oil Conference.

Participants at the two-day event, sched­uled for November 8^th and 9^th, will dis­cuss the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties fac­ing the world’s largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing region out­side the Mediterranean basin.

Adriana Gámbaro, one of the event’s orga­niz­ers and the direc­tor of the Uruguayan University of the Republic’s Food Science and Technology depart­ment, told Olive Oil Times that the con­fer­ence is an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a pub­lic body of knowl­edge about olive grow­ing and olive oil pro­duc­tion spe­cific to South American con­di­tions.

“The soil, rain and cli­mate con­di­tions are com­pletely dif­fer­ent from those of other olive-grow­ing regions,” Gámbaro said. ​“One of the goals is to share all the research being done in the region.”

While many pri­vate com­pa­nies con­duct research across the region, they do not pub­lish their find­ings. As a result, Gámbaro empha­sized that the con­fer­ence would play an impor­tant role in dis­sem­i­nat­ing research con­ducted by uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tutes to the pub­lic.

Topics of dis­cus­sion will include best agro­nomic prac­tices, milling tech­niques and tech­nol­ogy and olive oil eco­nom­ics.

For exam­ple, one panel will dis­cuss how farm­ers in Uruguay and south­ern Brazil can deal with fungi such as Colletotrichum and other pests and dis­eases favored by humid sum­mer con­di­tions.

There will also be pre­sen­ta­tions about the use of enzymes in extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion, an emerg­ing area of inter­est in Australia and the Americas but a con­tro­ver­sial topic in Europe, includ­ing a study from the University of the Republic.

“We are going to present the main results of our project at the con­fer­ence,” Gámbaro said. ​“There will also be com­pa­nies sell­ing these enzymes with stands at the event.”

Another goal of the con­fer­ence is to get peo­ple from across the con­ti­nent together to share their expe­ri­ences and learn from one another.

“Conferences are places where you are focused on one thing, and there is an inter­ac­tion with the researchers,” Gámbaro said. ​“Common projects emerge.”

She believes the ben­e­fits of in-per­son inter­ac­tions were miss­ing from the first edi­tion of the con­fer­ence, which was held dig­i­tally in April 2021 after a one-year delay due to the Covid-19 pan­demic.

These inter­ac­tions will occur in casual con­ver­sa­tion at the event and in the more for­mal envi­ron­ment of round-table dis­cus­sions, includ­ing one about the poten­tial for oleo­tourism across the region.

“It is an oppor­tu­nity for pro­duc­ers to lis­ten to these talks and say, ​‘how inter­est­ing what they are doing; maybe I can do the same thing or some­thing sim­i­lar,’” Gámbaro said.

The back­ers of the Mendoza Protected Geographical Indication con­sor­tium will also dis­cuss how they founded the region’s first geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tor for extra vir­gin olive oil.

“They will dis­cuss what the process was like to get the PGI, which can also set the tone and teach other regions the steps they have to take to achieve the same,” Gámbaro said.

The event will also exam­ine strate­gies to increase olive oil con­sump­tion in the region, form coop­er­a­tives, develop economies of scale, improve trace­abil­ity and add value to milling byprod­ucts.

“The final objec­tive is for every­one to taste extra vir­gin olive oils from the region,” Gambaro said.

The con­fer­ence begins the day after the International Olive Council’s Mario Solinas Awards for the Southern Hemisphere are announced in Montevideo.

Participants will be able to sam­ple extra vir­gin olive oils from across the con­ti­nent and see how the organolep­tic pro­file of the same olive vari­eties dif­fers from one region to the next.

Scientists and researchers have until September 15^th to sub­mit their stud­ies and pre­sen­ta­tions. While there is no announced dead­line for farm­ers, pro­duc­ers, ven­dors or the gen­eral pub­lic to sign up for the con­fer­ence, the cost is $110 per per­son. Students can enroll for $60.