`Virgin Olive Oil Prices Hit Trigger Level for European Aid - Olive Oil Times

Virgin Olive Oil Prices Hit Trigger Level for European Aid

By Julie Butler
Sep. 19, 2011 16:40 UTC

The aver­age price for vir­gin olive oil is now so low in Spain that the European Commission has no choice but to sub­si­dize stor­age until the mar­ket improves, the Spanish gov­ern­ment and olive oil pro­duc­ers said today.

The price fell to 169.91 €/kg for the week end­ing September 11. Given the E.C.‘s thresh­old price for vir­gin olive oil is 1.71 €/kg, Spain says pri­vate stor­age aid is now a must.

According to Europa Press, Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs Minister Rosa Aguilar said European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloş would be sent the rel­e­vant evi­dence and he should then act accord­ingly” and enable the aid.

Suffering a pro­longed pric­ing cri­sis, Spain has repeat­edly called for the mea­sure but Cioloş has in the past stressed that the cri­te­ria had not been met. Prices were low, but not low enough, and there was no proof of a mar­ket dis­tur­bance, he said ear­lier this year.

Rafael Sánchez de Puerta, direc­tor gen­eral of the Andalusian Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Enterprises (FAECA), said today that pri­vate stor­age aid was the only mea­sure that could help Spain’s olive oil sec­tor recover.

Rafael Civantos, a spokesman for COAG, one of Spain’s largest agrar­ian unions, said Brussels now had no excuses.”

And in a press release, Asaja-Jaén, an asso­ci­a­tion of young agri­cul­tur­ists, said pri­vate stor­age aid was urgently needed.”

Asaja empha­sized that the the stor­age aid trig­ger prices were set more than a decade ago and needed revi­sion. It also said that offi­cial records of olive oil prices were often higher than the actual prices paid to pro­duc­ers.

According to the fig­ures for September 5 – 11 released by Aguilar’s depart­ment, only the price for vir­gin olive oil was low enough to trig­ger aid. But Asaja said that in real­ity prices for lam­pante oil had also been below the thresh­old.

VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
Threshold 1.71 €/kg; cur­rent price 169.91 €/kg (down 0.64% on pre­vi­ous week)

EVOO
Threshold 1.77 €/kg; cur­rent prices: Córdoba 190.15 €/kg, Granada 185.00 €/kg, Jaén 190.82 €/kg, Málaga 193.00 €/kg, Seville 206.13 €/kg

LAMPANTE
Threshold 1.52 €/kg , cur­rent price 161.94 €/kg (down 0.33% on pre­vi­ous week)

Source: Europa Press/MARM for September 5 – 11, 2011

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