World olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to go down by four­teen per­cent dur­ing the 2016/​2017 cam­paign, accord­ing to the International Olive Council (IOC).

Members of the IOC par­tic­i­pated to the 18th meet­ing of the orga­ni­za­tion’s Economic Committee in Madrid between November 22 and November 25 to dis­cuss olive oil pro­duc­tion, prices, and global mar­ket trends.
See more: Complete Coverage of the 2016 Olive Harvest
The IOC’s pro­duc­tion fore­casts state that world olive oil pro­duc­tion could drop by as much as four­teen per­cent, reach­ing 2,713,500 tons, with mem­bers of the IOC gen­er­at­ing 2,519,000 tons.

European mem­bers of the IOC are expected to pro­duce 1,923,000 tons dur­ing the 2016/​17 sea­son, a 17-​percent decrease com­pared with the last cam­paign.

Spain is expected to see its pro­duc­tion decrease by 6 per­cent (to reach 1,311,000 tons), Greece should expe­ri­ence a 19-​percent decrease (260,000 tons), Italy a whop­ping 49-​percent decrease (243,000 tons), and Portugal’s will drop 14 per­cent (93,600 tons).

Italy has faced severe cli­mate con­di­tions and pest inva­sions in 2016. Other European coun­tries have been hit with drought and pests as well.

Production is also expected to drop in non-​European mem­bers of the IOC, namely in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Argentine, and Libya. On the other hand, pro­duc­tion is expected to rise in Turkey (+24 per­cent), Egypt (+8 per­cent), Israel (+7 per­cent), and Albania (+5 per­cent).

The IOC report also offers an analy­sis focus­ing on the evo­lu­tion of olive oil prices.

In Spain, a kilo­gram of extra-​virgin olive oil cost €3.37 ($3.59) as of late November, a 10-​percent increase com­pared with last year. It cost respec­tively €5.75 ($6.13) in Italy, €3,46 ($3.69) in Greece, and €3,68 ($3.93) in Tunisia (which rep­re­sent increases of 70, 21, and 12 per­cent respec­tively). Prices have risen sharply dur­ing the last few weeks.

World olive oil con­sump­tion is expected to go down by one per­cent in 2016/​2017 to reach 2,904,000 tons. The drop in yield lev­els implies an increase in prices, which leads to a decrease in con­sump­tion.

Last month, the IOC par­tic­i­pated in the 22nd ses­sion of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) that was held in Marrakech, Morocco from November 7 to November 18.

In a con­fer­ence call with its mem­bers, the IOC show­cased numer­ous stud­ies that proved that “olive grow­ing has pos­i­tive effects on the envi­ron­ment and that the adop­tion of appro­pri­ate agri­cul­tural prac­tices helps to increase the capac­ity for atmos­pheric C02 seques­tra­tion in per­ma­nent veg­e­ta­tive struc­tures (bio­mass) and in the soil.”

“A sci­en­tific con­sen­sus has now been reached that olive trees have a pos­i­tive car­bon bal­ance and that they have a real pos­i­tive impact and offer a real envi­ron­men­tal ser­vice to soci­ety,” the IOC said.

• IOC November Newsletter
• Olive Oil Times