International Shortage of Olive Oil to Be Compensated by Spain

Summary

Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion is expected to increase to 1.76 mil­lion tons in the 2018/19 sea­son, with exports pro­jected to rise by almost 40 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son, largely due to decreased pro­duc­tion in other coun­tries like Italy and Greece. Spain’s olive oil pro­duc­tion will account for three-quar­ters of total EU pro­duc­tion in the upcom­ing sea­son, with con­sump­tion in Spain also ris­ing as prices drop, and the suc­cess­ful har­vest sea­son is attrib­uted to cli­mate change lead­ing to opti­mal weather con­di­tions for olive growth.

According to the lat­est esti­mates released by the European Commission, Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion is pro­jected to reach 1.76 mil­lion tons in the 2018/19 sea­son, up from 1.39 mil­lion tons the pre­ced­ing sea­son.

Spain is expected to export 1.22 mil­lion tons this sea­son, up almost 40 per­cent from the 2017/18 sea­son. This is largely in response to the sharp decrease in pro­duc­tion in other coun­tries, such as Greece and Italy.

Italy is pro­jected to pro­duce just 226,000 tons of olive oil in the 2018/19 sea­son, less than half the amount of the pre­ced­ing har­vest­ing sea­son. Greece will fall by 35 per­cent to 248,000 tons and Portugal will drop almost 20 per­cent, down to 121,300 tons.

Overall, European Union olive oil pro­duc­tion num­bers are expected to remain fairly sta­ble, at 2.375 mil­lion tons in 2018/19 com­pared with 2.410 mil­lion tons in 2017/18.

Spain’s pro­duc­tion will make up three-quar­ters of total EU olive oil pro­duc­tion in the 2018/19 sea­son, and more than half of the world­wide pro­duc­tion.

After a slight dip over the hol­i­day sea­son, exports are expected to pick up again in January. Consumption in Spain is also increas­ing in the 2018/19 sea­son after prices dropped back down below €3.00 ($3.42) per kilo­gram for extra vir­gin olive oil, and is expected to reach 578,700 tons.

Davide Granieri, pres­i­dent of the Italian olive oil con­sor­tium Unaprol, blamed this year’s dis­ap­point­ing crop on cli­mate change, fraud and the tar­iff-free influx of Tunisian olive oil into the EU mar­ket.

Italy is also still in the throes of an infes­ta­tion of Xylella fas­tidiosa, a plant pathogen that is rav­aging olive oil groves in the east­ern part of the coun­try. A few cases of Xylella fas­tidiosa were found in Spain as well last year.

The major­ity of this year’s crop so far was har­vested in December, when Spain col­lected 679,000 tons of olive oil, the sec­ond-most pro­duc­tive month in the last decade. The province of Jaén is respon­si­ble for 40 per­cent of Spain’s olive oil pro­duc­tion, equat­ing to more than Greece and Italy com­bined.

Ironically, Spanish olive oil pro­duc­ers have cli­mate change to thank for the suc­cess­ful har­vest sea­son.

Unseasonable cold snaps and heat waves lined up per­fectly to pro­duce a bumper crop of olives in many regions this year. Jaén suf­fered a worse-than-expected har­vest in November due to poor weather, but man­aged to com­pen­sate for it in December.

The cli­mate in January will deter­mine whether Spain reaches the esti­mated olive oil pro­duc­tion fig­ures for the 2018/19 sea­son.

The most impor­tant olive oil pro­duc­ing coun­tries out­side of the EU are also see­ing a drop in fig­ures. Tunisia and Turkey are expected to fall by around 50 per­cent and only Morocco will increase its pro­duc­tion, reach­ing about 50 per­cent more than the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

According to the lat­est fig­ures from the International Olive Oil Council, world­wide olive oil pro­duc­tion for the 2018/19 sea­son is expected to reach 3.451 mil­lion tons, down slightly from 3.653 mil­lion tons in the 2017/18 har­vest­ing sea­son.

• European Commission


• International Olive Oil Council